Pennsylvania adds 9,675 new covid cases in 2 days, 51 new deaths
Pennsylvania added more than 9,600 new cases of coronavirus in the past two days, according the state’s Department of Health. There were 5,199 cases added on Sunday and another 4,476 added Monday. Of Sunday’s cases, 4,821 were confirmed; of Monday’s, 4,152 were confirmed. Among Monday’s new cases, 20.7% of those...
NATO, acting U.S. Pentagon chief discuss Afghanistan
BRUSSELS — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has spoken to the new acting U.S. defense secretary about the alliance’s commitment to stay in Afghanistan as long as necessary, his spokeswoman said Monday, amid speculation that President Donald Trump might order a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops in the country. NATO spokeswoman...
Michigan governor says she has authority for stay-home order
LANSING, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Monday she has the authority to issue a second stay-at-home order to curb the spiking coronavirus if necessary and called a comment by an adviser to President Donald Trump urging people to “rise up” against Michigan’s latest restrictions “incredibly reckless.” The Democratic governor...
Trump campaign drops key request in Pennsylvania lawsuit
HARRISBURG — President Donald Trump’s campaign is withdrawing a central request in its lawsuit seeking to stop the certification of the election results in Pennsylvania, where Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump to capture the state and help win the White House. Ahead of a Tuesday hearing in the case, Trump’s...
Moderna coronavirus vaccine appears 95% effective in early U.S. tests
For the second time this month, there’s promising news from a covid-19 vaccine candidate: Moderna said Monday its shots provide strong protection, a dash of hope against the grim backdrop of coronavirus surges in the U.S. and around the world. Moderna said its vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective, according...
Michigan halts high school classes, indoor restaurant diningVideo
LANSING, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration on Sunday ordered high schools and colleges to stop in-person classes, closed restaurants to indoor dining and stopped organized sports — including the football playoffs — in a bid to curb Michigan’s spiking coronavirus cases. The restrictions will begin Wednesday and last three...
Delayed start to transition of power hurts coronavirus-fighting effort, Biden team saysVideo
WASHINGTON — With President Trump still balking at conceding electoral defeat and public health experts forecasting a horrific new phase of the covid-19 pandemic, calls intensified Sunday for the start of a formal transition to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden. The nationwide virus caseload last week touched unprecedented heights...
Trump urges judge to preserve suit over Pennsylvania ballots
The Trump campaign urged a judge to preserve its bid to block Pennsylvania from certifying President-elect Joe Biden as the winner, claiming there’s evidence that voters in Democratic-leaning counties were improperly allowed to fix errors with their ballots. In a filing Sunday in federal court, the campaign said a half-dozen...
Newsmax chief says he’d welcome Trump to his cable channel but ‘we don’t want to be Trump TV’
All the talk about Donald Trump going from the White House to cable TV mogul doesn’t mean the president is going to take over Newsmax and turn it into Trump TV. “I would welcome the president’s involvement in the channel,” Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said. But even for the longtime...
Biden team to meet with pharma companies soon on coronavirus fight
President-elect Joe Biden’s team will begin meeting with Pfizer Inc. and other pharmaceutical companies within days as they continue the transition to a new administration amid the escalating coronavirus pandemic, his chief of staff said Sunday. “We’re going to have meetings between our top scientific advisers and the officials of...
SpaceX launches 2nd crew, regular station crew flights begin
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company. The Falcon rocket thundered into the night from Kennedy Space Center with three Americans and one Japanese, the second crew to be launched...
Hurricane Iota heads for battered Honduras, Nicaragua
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Iota became the 13th hurricane of the Atlantic season early Sunday, threatening to bring another dangerous system to Nicaragua and Honduras — countries recently clobbered by a Category 4 Hurricane Eta. Iota was already a record-breaking system, being the 30th named storm of this year’s extraordinarily...
Time to discuss potentially unpleasant side effects of covid-19 shots? Scientists say yes
Drugmaker Pfizer is expected to seek federal permission to release its covid-19 vaccine by the end of November, a move that holds promise for quelling the pandemic, but also sets up a tight time frame for making sure consumers understand what it will mean to actually get the shots. This...
Poll workers contract virus, but Election Day link unclear
Despite painstaking efforts to keep election sites safe, some poll workers who came in contact with voters on Election Day have tested positive for the coronavirus, including more than two dozen in Missouri and cases in New York, Iowa, Indiana and Virginia. The infections cannot be tied definitively to polling...
North Dakota nurses worry about working with sick colleagues
BISMARCK, N.D. — Like many medical workers around the world, the coronavirus pandemic is a burden that Fargo emergency room nurse Adam Johnston can’t escape. The grim reality follows him everywhere: at work, where people die every shift; at the grocery store, where people rail against his city’s mask requirement;...
‘Righting a wrong’: Nevada 1st to protect same-sex marriage
CARSON CITY, Nev. — Las Vegas has been known for decades as the place for exuberant nuptials blessed by the swirl of Elvis’ white capes. But for years, legal marriages were barred for same-sex couples. Now, the state that’s home to the “wedding capital of the world” is also the...
Trump seems to acknowledge Biden win, but he won’t concede
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to acknowledge for the first time that Joe Biden won the White House, but made clear he would not concede and would keep trying to overturn the election result. Trump’s statements came in tweets that included several baseless claims about the Nov....
Polling industry again faces criticism, but most got it right in presidential race
Days before President-elect Joe Biden declared victory, with millions of votes still being counted, pundits as well as regular voters were quick to condemn the polling industry for failing to gauge just how tight the 2020 presidential race initially seemed to be. Democrats hoping to watch a blue wave roll...
Russian city to demolish derided ‘Robot’ building
MOSCOW — A hulking, never-occupied building sardonically likened to a robot’s head that has loomed over the Russian city of Kaliningrad for decades is to be demolished next year, the region’s governor says. The 21-story House of Soviets was left unfinished when funding ran out in 1985 amid the Soviet...
Biden likely to break barriers, pick woman to lead Pentagon
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a historic step and select a woman to head the Pentagon for the first time, shattering one of the few remaining barriers to women in the department and the presidential Cabinet. Michele Flournoy, a politically moderate Pentagon veteran, is regarded by...
Thousands rally behind Trump, insisting he won race he lost; violent clashes break out
WASHINGTON — After several thousand supporters of President Donald Trump protested the election results and marched to the Supreme Court, nighttime clashes with counterdemonstrators led to fistfights, at least one stabbing and more than 20 arrests. Several other cities on Saturday also saw gatherings of Trump supporters unwilling to accept...
Curtis Flowers defense team receives human rights award
OXFORD, Miss. — A human rights award has been presented to the defense team for a Mississippi man who was freed from prison in December after more than 20 years and this year had all charges dropped against him. The Curtis Flowers defense team, which includes the George C. Cochran...
Thousands attend weekly protest against Israel’s Netanyahu
JERUSALEM — Several thousand protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem on Saturday night in what has become a weekly demonstration calling for the Israeli leader to resign. The protesters have been demonstrating for some five months, saying Netanyahu is unfit to lead while he is...
Ethiopia’s Tigray region bombs airports as conflict spreads
NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopia’s defiant Tigray regional government said Saturday it fired rockets at two airports in the neighboring Amhara region as a deadly conflict threatens to spread into other parts of Africa’s second-most populous country. The Tigray regional government said in a statement on Tigray TV that such strikes...
Romania: 10 die in fire at covid-19 intensive care unit
BUCHAREST, Romania — Romanian officials say a fire at a hospital treating covid-19 patients has killed 10 people and critically injured seven others. The blaze spread through the intensive care ward designated for people with covid-19 patients at the public hospital in the northern city of Piatra Neamt, said Irina...
