Texas prosecutor convenes grand jury to investigate Uvalde shooting
UVALDE, Texas — A Texas prosecutor has convened a grand jury to investigate the Uvalde school shooting that killed 21 people, multiple media outlets reported Friday. Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell told the San Antonio Express-News a grand jury will review evidence related to the Robb Elementary School shooting...
Andrew Cuomo sues attorney general for records in sexual harassment probe that led to his downfall
NEW YORK — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is suing state Attorney General Letitia James in an effort to force her to turn over interviews from the damaging sexual misconduct investigation that led to his resignation. Cuomo filed the case against James in New York state court Thursday, arguing...
Carnegie Mellon University hit by cyberattack, informs 7,300 people possibly affected
Carnegie Mellon University informed about 7,300 people that their personal information may have been compromised in an August cyberattack that was quietly investigated by law enforcement and the university. The breach impacting one of the nation’s top schools for computing was acknowledged by the university as higher education in general...
NYC mayor vetoes bills banning solitary confinement in jails and expanding reporting of police stops
NEW YORK — New York City’s mayor vetoed bills Friday aimed at banning solitary confinement in city jails and requiring more transparency in police encounters with civilians, setting up a faceoff with the City Council, which says it has enough votes to override him. Democratic Mayor Eric Adams said the...
IUP gets $500K donation for medical college project
Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s bid to open the state’s first college of osteopathic medicine on a public campus is getting a financial lift from IUP’s alumni association. The organization’s board of directors has authorized a $500,000 donation toward the endeavor that was first announced in December 2022, university officials said...
Rifts emerge among top Israeli officials over how to handle the war against Hamas in Gaza
JERUSALEM — Rifts are emerging among top Israeli officials over the handling of the war against Hamas in Gaza. A member of the country’s War Cabinet cast doubt over the strategy for releasing hostages, while the prime minister rejected the United States’ calls to scale back its offensive. Only a...
Boeing 747 cargo plane makes emergency landing shortly after takeoff at Miami airport
MIAMI — A witness saw sparks shooting from a cargo plane as it made an emergency landing at Miami International Airport shortly after takeoff. The aircraft landed safely Thursday night “after experiencing an engine malfunction soon after departure,” a spokesperson for Atlas Air said in a statement Friday. “The crew...
Fani Willis accuses estranged wife of special prosecutor of ‘interfering’ with Trump election case
ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is accusing the estranged wife of a special prosecutor she hired of trying to obstruct her criminal election-interference case against former President Donald Trump and others by seeking to question her in the couple’s divorce proceedings. A motion filed last week by...
Man arrested in series of New York City stabbings, police say
NEW YORK — New York City police have arrested a hospital worker from Queens after a series of recent stabbings, officials announced Thursday. NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban described the six attacks over the past 10 days, none of which were fatal, as “random, unmotivated violence” at a news conference. Jermain...
Judge denies Trump’s request to hold Jack Smith in contempt in federal 2020 election case
WASHINGTON — The federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case against Donald Trump on Thursday rejected his lawyers’ bid to hold special counsel Jack Smith’s team in contempt for actions prosecutors took after the judge put the case on hold. But the judge said no further “substantive” court filings...
Utility shut-off protections in Pa. would be expanded to summer months under bill
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania lawmakers have until the end of 2024 to reauthorize a key area of state law that protects low-income utility customers from sudden...
Man riding on back of garbage truck in Centre County killed after crash into overhanging tree
A man riding on the back of a garbage truck was killed this week when the driver backed into a tree in Centre County, state police at Rockview wrote in a crash report. Nathan Kerstetter, 38, of Milesburg, was hanging off the back of the truck about noon Wednesday when...
Hunter Biden agrees to deposition with House Republican after months of defiance, committee says
WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly. The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that the two parties have agreed for Hunter Biden to sit for a...
Icy blast gripping U.S. blamed for 14 deaths in Tennessee; Oregon braces for another round of coldVideo
NASHVILLE — At least 14 deaths in Tennessee have been linked to a storm system that blanketed the state in snow and sent temperatures plummeting, as bitterly cold weather kept an icy grip Thursday on a swath of the U.S. stretching from Oregon to the Northeast. Tennessee officials updated the...
New York midwife who gave kids homeopathic pellets instead of vaccines fined $300K for falsifying records
NEW YORK — A New York midwife who gave nearly 1,500 children homeopathic pellets instead of required vaccinations has been fined $300,000, the state’s health department announced this week. Jeanette Breen, who operates Baldwin Midwifery on Long Island, administered the pellets as an alternative to vaccinations and then falsified their...
Pennsylvania can’t stop young adults from openly carrying guns during emergencies, U.S. court rules
PHILADELPHIA — Young adults in Pennsylvania cannot be arrested for openly carrying guns in public during a declared state of emergency, at least while a court fight over the issue plays out, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 3rd U.S. Circuit judges, in a 2-1 decision, relied on the...
Congress votes to avert a shutdown and keep the government funded through early March
WASHINGTON — Congress sent President Joe Biden a short-term spending bill on Thursday that would avert a looming partial government shutdown and fund federal agencies into March. The House approved the measure by a vote of 314-108, with opposition coming mostly from the more conservative members of the Republican conference....
Atlanta’s Spelman College just got the largest-ever single donation to an HBCU
ATLANTA — A billionaire couple is giving $100 million to Atlanta’s Spelman College, which the women’s school says is the largest-ever single donation to a historically Black college or university. The donation was announced Thursday by Ronda Stryker and her husband William Johnston. She is the billionaire granddaughter of the...
Faculty union, Pa. university system reach potential labor deal
The union representing 5,000 state university faculty across Pennsylvania has reached “an agreement in principle” with leaders of the State System of Higher Education, both parties confirmed Thursday. The agreement followed a full day and night of negotiating. It comes almost seven months after the existing agreement between the Association...
Police response to the Uvalde shooting was riddled with failures, a new DOJ report says
UVALDE, Texas — Police officials who responded to the deadly Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting waited far too long to confront the gunman, acted with “no urgency” in establishing a command post and communicated inaccurate information to grieving families, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday that identifies “cascading...
Anti-abortion activists brace for challenges ahead as they gather for annual March for Life
A year ago, anti-abortion activists from across the U.S. gathered for their annual March for Life with reason to celebrate: It was their first march since the Supreme Court, seven months earlier, had overturned the nationwide right to abortion. At this year’s march, on Friday, the mood will be very...
Pakistan launches retaliatory airstrikes in Iran after an earlier attack by Tehran, killing 9 people
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s air force launched retaliatory airstrikes early Thursday in Iran, allegedly targeting militant hideouts, an attack that killed at least nine people and further raised tensions between the neighboring nations. The tit-for-tat attacks Tuesday and Thursday appeared to target two Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals on...
Netanyahu says he has told U.S. he opposes Palestinian state in any postwar scenario
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he has told the United States that he opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of any postwar scenario, underscoring the deep divisions between the close allies three months into Israel’s assault on Gaza aiming to eliminate...
Maine judge stays Trump ballot ban until Supreme Court rules
A Maine judge ruled that the state won’t be able to move forward with removing former President Donald Trump’s name from the presidential primary ballot until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a similar case from Colorado. Maine Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy on Wednesday denied Trump’s request for a...
Man charged in shooting that critically wounded Pennsylvania police officer
SCRANTON — Authorities have announced charges against a man in what they called an ambush-style shooting that critically wounded a police officer in northeastern Pennsylvania last week. Aiden Gabriel Deininger, 20, of Old Forge is charged in Lackawanna County with three counts of attempted homicide of law enforcement officers, criminal...
