Wisconsin Supreme Court orders new legislative maps in redistricting case brought by Democrats
MADISON, Wis. — The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned Republican-drawn legislative maps Friday and ordered that new district boundary lines be drawn as Democrats had urged in a redistricting case they hope will weaken GOP majorities. The ruling comes less than a year before the 2024 election in a battleground...
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Alaska may be your best bet, as U.S. ski resorts see rain, not snow
GILFORD, N.H. — For most Americans dreaming of a white Christmas, this year’s prospects aren’t good. Although parts of the Rockies and Midwest already have snow or could get a fresh dusting by Monday, other parts of the country that normally are coated in white this time of year still...
Supreme Court says no, for now, to plea to rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Friday that it will not immediately take up a plea by special counsel Jack Smith to rule on whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted for his actions to overturn the 2020 election results. The issue will now be decided by the U.S....
Tape reveals Donald Trump pressured Michigan officials not to certify 2020 vote, a new report says
Donald Trump pressured two election officials not to certify 2020 vote totals in a key Michigan county, according to a recording of a post-election phone call disclosed in a new report by The Detroit News. The former president’s 2024 campaign neither confirmed nor denied the recording’s legitimacy, insisting in a...
FDA says fake Ozempic shots are being sold through some legitimate sources
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has seized “thousands of units” of counterfeit Ozempic, the diabetes drug widely used for weight loss, that had been distributed through legitimate drug supply sources. The FDA and the drug’s maker, Novo Nordisk, are testing the shots. They do not yet have...
Czechs mourn 14 dead and dozens wounded in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history
PRAGUE — People in the Czech capital were trying to come to grips Friday with the worst mass shooting in the country’s history that left 14 dead and dozens wounded inside a university building. The shooter is also believed to have killed his father earlier in the day and a...
Biden is pardoning thousands convicted of marijuana charges on federal lands and in Washington
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is making thousands of people who were convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia eligible for pardons, the White House said Friday, in his latest round of executive clemencies meant to rectify racial disparities in...
1 injured in shooting at a Virginia hospital; suspect in custody
RICHMOND, Va. — Police said one person was injured at a Richmond hospital when a man who had come into the hospital for a mental health evaluation began shooting. Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards told reporters that a 911 call came in at 4:11 a.m. of shots fired at Chippenham...
Biden signs executive order aimed at financial facilitators of the Russian defense industry
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday giving the U.S. Treasury Department the authority to target financial institutions that facilitate Russia’s efforts to bolster its defense industry. The new sanctions authority is meant to gum up the Kremlin’s push to restock the Russian military’s depleted arsenal after...
Israel strikes 2 homes, killing more than 90 Palestinians while hundreds have been detained
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes, rescuers and hospital officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel’s offensive is creating “massive obstacles”...
Russian official says U.S. is hampering a prisoner exchange with unequal demands
MOSCOW — A Russian deputy foreign minister said that talks with the United States on a potential prisoner exchange that would free Americans held in Russia are hampered by publicity and an alleged disparity in the U.S. negotiating stance. The U.S. State Department said last week that Russia rejected several...
Probe: Doomed Philadelphia news helicopter hit trees fast, broke up, then burned, killing 2
SHAMONG, N.J. — A Philadelphia television news helicopter returning from an assignment photographing Christmas lights this week plunged into a southern New Jersey forest “at very high speed,” broke apart, then caught fire after it crashed, killing both occupants, a federal crash investigator said Friday. Todd Gunther, an investigator with...
Biden believes U.S. Steel sale to Nippon Steel warrants ‘serious scrutiny,’ White House says
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden believes “serious scrutiny” is warranted for the planned acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, the White House said Thursday after days of silence on a transaction that has drawn alarm from the steelworkers union. Lael Brainard, the director of the National Economic Council,...
New Pa. poll shows would-be presidential race between Biden, Trump a statistical dead heat
A new poll of Pennsylvania voters shows that a would-be presidential race between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump is a statistical dead heat. Muhlenberg College in Allentown released a statewide poll this week that showed 42% of Pennsylvania voters say they prefer Biden in 2024, compared to 41%...
Administrative election errors rise as Pa. counties struggle to keep voting officials
This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. In mid-October, Greene County, in southwest Pennsylvania, notified voters that some mail ballots for the November election listed two races for magisterial district judges, though voters were only supposed...
Trump transformed the Supreme Court. Now the justices could decide his political and legal future
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump touts his transformation of the U.S. Supreme Court as one of his presidency’s greatest accomplishments. Now his legal and political future may lie in the hands of the court he pushed to the right. With three Trump-appointed justices leading a conservative majority, the court is being...
Rudy Giuliani files for bankruptcy days after being ordered to pay $148 million in defamation case
NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy, days after being ordered to pay $148 million in a defamation lawsuit brought by two former election workers in Georgia who said his targeting of them led to death threats that made them fear for their lives. In his filing Thursday,...
UN report says more than 570,000 people in Gaza now ‘starving’ due to fallout from war
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — More than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving due to “woefully insufficient” quantities of food entering the territory ever since Israel’s military responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, according to a report released Thursday by the U.N....
A lone gunman opens fire in a Prague university, killing 14 people and injuring 25
PRAGUE — A lone gunman opened fire Thursday in a university building in downtown Prague, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 20 in the Czech Republic’s worst mass shooting, police and the city’s rescue service said. The bloodshed took place in the philosophy department building of Charles...
Taliban official says Afghan girls of all ages permitted to study in religious schools
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan girls of all ages are permitted to study in religious schools, which are traditionally boys-only, a Taliban official said Thursday. A day earlier, U.N. special envoy Roza Otunbayeva told the Security Council and reporters that the United Nations was receiving “more and more anecdotal evidence” that...
U.S. unemployment claims rise slightly, remain at low levels despite higher interest rates
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose slightly last week but still remained at historically low levels despite high interest rates intended to slow hiring and cool the economy. The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims were up by 2,000 to 205,000 the week that...
Ready, set, travel: The holiday rush to the airports and highways is underway
It’s beginning to look a lot like a hectic holiday travel season, but it might go relatively smoothly if the weather cooperates. Travel over Christmas and New Year’s tends to spread out over many days, so the peaks in the U.S. are likely to be lower than they were during...
Parents of children sickened by lead linked to tainted fruit pouches fear for kids’ future
When Cora Dibert went for a routine blood test in October, the toddler brought along her favorite new snack: a squeeze pouch of WanaBana cinnamon-flavored apple puree. “She sucked them dry,” recalls her 26-year-old mother, Morgan Shurtleff, of Elgin, Oklahoma. Within a week, the family got an alarming call. The...
Health officials push to get schoolchildren vaccinated as more U.S. parents opt out
When Idaho had a rare measles outbreak a few months ago, health officials scrambled to keep it from spreading. In the end, 10 people, all in one family, were infected, all unvaccinated. This time, the state was lucky, said the region’s medical director Dr. Perry Jansen. The family quickly quarantined...
Federal judge blocks California law that would have banned carrying firearms in most public places
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a California law that would have banned carrying firearms in most public places, ruling that it violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and deprives people of their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones. The law signed...
