Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 48 as fears mount over humanitarian crisis and West Bank violence
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes killed at least 48 people in southern and central Gaza overnight, half of them women and children, health officials said Thursday, as European foreign ministers and U.N. agencies called for a cease-fire, with alarm rising over the worsening humanitarian crisis and potential starvation in...
Cellular outages strike the nation
A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data from Downdetector. AT&T had more than 73,000 outages around 9:30 a.m. ET, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. The outages began at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET. The...
New York AG says she’ll seize Donald Trump’s property if he can’t pay $454 million civil fraud debt
NEW YORK — Donald Trump could be at risk of losing some of his prized properties if he can’t pay his staggering New York civil fraud penalty. With interest, he owes the state nearly $454 million — and the amount is going up $87,502 each day until he pays. New...
An online dump of Chinese hacking documents offers a rare window into pervasive state surveillance
Chinese police are investigating an unauthorized and highly unusual online dump of documents from a private security contractor linked to the nation’s top policing agency and other parts of its government — a trove that catalogs apparent hacking activity and tools to spy on both Chinese and foreigners. Among the...
Biden calls Putin a ‘crazy SOB’ and takes aim at Trump during fundraiser for 2024 election
SAN FRANCISCO — During a fundraiser for his reelection campaign Wednesday night, President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “crazy SOB” and took aim at former President Donald Trump’s comments comparing himself to the Russian opposition leader who died last week in an Arctic prison. Biden was talking...
Republican prosecutor in Arizona takes swipe at New York district attorney prosecuting Trump
PHOENIX — The Republican prosecutor of Arizona’s most populous county took a thinly veiled swipe at a Democratic counterpart in the East on Wednesday, saying she would not agree to extradition of a suspect in the death of a woman who was fatally bludgeoned in a New York City hotel...
Westmoreland DA will review Penn Township police video before public release
The Penn Township commissioners voted Wednesday to allow the Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office to review police body camera video before it is released to the public. Four months after police released body camera video showing an officer shooting a Ligonier Township man, District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli’s office requested in...
Supreme Court seems skeptical of EPA’s ‘good neighbor’ rule on power plant pollution
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed skeptical Wednesday as the Environmental Protection Agency sought to continue enforcing an anti-air-pollution rule in 11 states while separate legal challenges proceed around the country. The EPA’s “good neighbor” rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial...
White House weighing executive actions on the border — with immigration powers used by Trump
WASHINGTON — The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by former President Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations. The administration, stymied by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill...
State System of Higher Education chancellor faces tough questioning over more than next school year’s budget
Were this any other year, the leader of Pennsylvania’s 10 state-owned universities simply might have needed to defend next year’s appropriation request and explain how it would enable a sixth consecutive tuition freeze. Instead, State System of Higher Education Chancellor Daniel Greenstein faced sharp questioning from state senators Wednesday about...
Pennsylvania’s high court throws out GOP lawmakers’ subpoena in 2020 presidential election case
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s highest court ruled Wednesday that Republican state lawmakers can no longer try to enforce a subpoena for a wide range of election records they issued in 2021 in a quest inspired by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The court,...
Pennsylvania’s high court sides with township over its ban of a backyard gun range
HARRISBURG — A township ordinance that limits firing guns to indoor and outdoor shooting ranges and zoning that significantly restricts where the ranges can be located do not violate the Second Amendment, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The man who challenged Stroud Township’s gun laws, Jonathan Barris, began to draw...
‘Something’s not right to me,’ UPS worker says of cuts at New Stanton hub
A United Parcel Service employee said she felt betrayed this week after receiving news the company plans to shed about 200 jobs from its New Stanton delivery hub. “In the end, we got screwed. It’s rough. Something’s not right to me,” said Lindsey Kramer, 37, of Mt. Pleasant. She was...
‘The Bachelor’ fans react to Joey Graziadei’s season, predict hometown dates
With hometown dates less than two weeks away, Season 28 of ABC’s “The Bachelor” is heating up. Four contestants will get to show the bachelor around their hometowns and introduce him to their families. Fans took to the X social media platform to express their opinions on Joey Graziadei —...
James Biden tells GOP lawmakers that Joe Biden had no involvement in the family’s business dealingsVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden “never had any involvement” in the business dealings of other members of his family, his brother James Biden testified Wednesday as he appeared for a voluntary private interview on Capitol Hill as part of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry. “I have had a 50-year career in...
Alabama hospital puts pause on IVF in wake of ruling saying frozen embryos are children
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A large Alabama hospital has paused in vitro fertilization treatments as health care providers weigh the impact of a state court ruling that frozen embryos are the legal equivalent of children. The University of Alabama Birmingham said in a statement Wednesday that its UAB Division of Reproductive...
Oklahoma police investigating a nonbinary teen’s death after a fight in a high school bathroom
OKLAHOMA CITY — Police in Oklahoma are investigating the death of a 16-year-old student who died a day after an altercation in a high school bathroom that may have been prompted by bullying over gender identity. Neither police nor school officials have said what led to the fight. But the...
Private U.S. spacecraft enters orbit around the moon ahead of landing attempt
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A private U.S. lunar lander reached the moon and eased into a low orbit Wednesday, a day before it will attempt an even greater feat — landing on the gray, dusty surface. A smooth touchdown would put the U.S. back in business on the moon for...
After 2-year-old girl shoots self, man becomes first person charged under Michigan’s gun storage law
FLINT, Mich. — A Michigan man whose 2-year-old daughter shot herself in the head with his revolver last week became the first person charged under the state’s new law requiring safe storage of guns, just days after the new measure took effect as part of a sweeping reform of gun...
Georgia drivers could refuse to sign traffic tickets and not be arrested under bill
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers are seeking to change state law to say that officers don’t have to arrest people who refuse to sign traffic tickets after a church deacon died in August after initially refusing to sign a citation and struggling with an Atlanta police officer. The state House voted...
Student debt wiped clean for 153K borrowers
About 153,000 student borrowers nationwide learned by email this week that their college debt has been wiped clean by the federal government. The U.S. Department of Education says it has discharged or eliminated $1.2 billion in student loans under the Biden administration’s new income-driven student loan repayment plan called Saving...
Ghost gun manufacturer agrees to stop sales to Maryland residents
BALTIMORE — A leading manufacturer of ghost guns has agreed to stop selling its untraceable, unassembled firearms to Maryland residents under a settlement agreement announced Wednesday by the city of Baltimore. City leaders sued the company, Nevada-based Polymer80, two years ago “in response to the rapid escalation of ghost guns...
Young girl killed when a hole she dug in the sand collapsed on a Florida beach, authorities said
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The collapse of a sand hole that killed a 5-year-old Indiana girl who was digging with her brother on a Florida beach is an underrecognized danger that kills and injures several children a year around the country. Sloan Mattingly died Tuesday afternoon at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s beach when...
It’s an election year, and Biden’s team is signaling a more aggressive posture toward the press
NEW YORK — Occupants of the White House have grumbled over news coverage practically since the place was built. Now it’s Joe Biden’s turn: With a reelection campaign underway, there are signs that those behind the president are starting to more aggressively and publicly challenge how he is portrayed. Within...
A pacemaker for the brain helped a woman with crippling depression. It may soon be available to more
NEW YORK — Emily Hollenbeck lived with a deep, recurring depression she likened to a black hole, where gravity felt so strong and her limbs so heavy she could barely move. She knew the illness could kill her. Both of her parents had taken their lives. She was willing to...
