Pa. Supreme Court candidates with party backing show fundraising advantage
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — The candidates running for an open seat on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court are getting campaign money from wealthy donors, their...
British PM urges Northern Ireland politicians to go back to work
LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak praised the bravery of political leaders who struck the Good Friday peace accord 25 years ago Monday, as he urged Northern Ireland’s current politicians to return to work. While the peace deal largely brought an end to 30 years of hostilities, the Northern...
DeSantis to make 1st public appearance in South Carolina
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to make his first public appearance in South Carolina, a state where votes will be critical if he launches an expected 2024 presidential bid. State Sen. Josh Kimbrell told The Associated Press that he would host DeSantis for an event on...
Leaked documents a ‘very serious’ risk to security: Pentagon
WASHINGTON — The online leaks of scores of highly classified documents about the Ukraine war present a “very serious” risk to national security, and senior leaders are quickly taking steps to mitigate the damage, a top Pentagon spokesman said Monday. Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public...
Illustrated Anne Frank book removed by Florida school
ORLANDO, Fla. — A high school along Florida’s Atlantic Coast has removed a graphic novel based on the diary of Anne Frank after a leader of a conservative advocacy group challenged it, claiming it minimized the Holocaust. “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” was removed from a library at Vero...
California storms hit beekeepers, but honey outlook’s sweet
During California’s prolonged, wet winter, beekeeper Gene Brandi said he had to spend twice as much money on a sugary syrup to feed his honeybees and keep them alive. That’s because the bees sent to pollinate blooming almond orchards took longer than usual to emerge from their hives due to...
Biden kicks off Easter egg roll with talk of reelection bid
WASHINGTON — Not even the annual White House Easter Egg Roll is safe from presidential politics. President Joe Biden, the host of Monday’s festivities on the South Lawn, said he plans to participate in “at least three or four more Easter egg rolls, maybe five.” Biden was alluding to his...
Money, power, sex: Attorney says Idaho slain kids’ mom used all 3
BOISE, Idaho — A mother accused in the triple murder of her two youngest children as well as her new husband’s previous wife was willing to “remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants,” a prosecutor told jurors Monday morning. “The defendant used money, power and sex...
Louisville bank employee livestreamed attack that killed 5Video
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace Monday morning, killing five people — including a close friend of Kentucky’s governor — while livestreaming the attack on Instagram, authorities said. Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside Old National Bank...
UN food agency: $800M urgently needed for Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD — The U.N. food agency said Monday it urgently needs $800 million for the next six months to help Afghanistan, which is at the highest risk of famine in a quarter of a century. Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the...
Grand jury weighs charges for police in Jayland Walker death
A grand jury in Ohio will hear evidence this week to decide whether police officers should face criminal charges in the shooting of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man whose death sparked protests in Akron last summer. Eight officers fired dozens of rounds at Walker following a car and foot...
AMA’s first gay president to take over at tumultuous time
CHICAGO — The first openly gay person to lead the American Medical Association takes the reins at a fractious time for U.S. health care. Transgender patients and those seeking abortion care face restrictions in many places. The medical judgment of physicians is being overridden by state laws. Disinformation is rampant....
Competing abortion pill rulings sow broad alarm, confusion
Emma Hernandez is defiant even if she fears what may come in the latest stage of the nation’s fight over abortion: a widening prohibition to safe and legal ways to end unwanted pregnancies, including access to abortion pills. Competing rulings by two federal judges over the availability of the abortion...
Proud Boys leaders’ Jan. 6 sedition trial inches to a close
WASHINGTON — After almost three months of testimony, dozens of witnesses and countless legal fights, a jury will soon decide whether the onetime leader of the Proud Boys extremist group is guilty in one of the most serious cases brought in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol....
Palestinian teen killed in army raid as settlers hold march
JERUSALEM — Thousands of Israelis led by at least seven Cabinet ministers marched Monday to an evacuated West Bank settlement, in a defiant signal that Israel’s most right-wing government in history is determined to accelerate settlement building on occupied lands despite international opposition. The mass rally also threatened to further...
Trump’s response to criminal charges revives election lies
NEW YORK — Legally, the most important words former President Donald Trump said after he was charged with 34 felonies by the Manhattan District Attorney last week were “not guilty.” But, politically, the most significant may be “election interference.” Trump’s repetition of those words, which have been taken up by...
Pa. Democratic Sen. Bob Casey to seek 4th term
HARRISBURG — Democratic Sen. Bob Casey will seek a fourth term in office, bringing the power of incumbency and unmatched name recognition in Pennsylvania politics to his party’s defense of a seat in a critical presidential battleground state. The announcement by Casey, the longest-serving Democratic U.S. senator in Pennsylvania history,...
China military ‘ready to fight’ after drills near Taiwan
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China’s military declared Monday it is “ready to fight” after completing three days of large-scale combat exercises around Taiwan that simulated sealing off the island in response to the Taiwanese president’s trip to the U.S. last week. The “combat readiness patrols” named Joint Sword were meant as...
As runway near-misses surge, radar that keeps planes apart is aging and unreliable
A crucial safety system that’s relied on to avoid potentially fatal collisions at major U.S. airports is aging and plagued by outages that have left travelers unprotected for months at a time. At some airports, it hasn’t ever been installed. The technology — which tracks vehicles on or near runways...
HHS Secretary Becerra slams abortion pill ruling as ‘not America’Video
WASHINGTON — The nation’s top health official said Sunday that a court ruling threatening the availability of a main drug used in medication abortion was “not America” and he did not rule out defying the judge’s order if necessary. “We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision,” Xavier Becerra,...
Harlan Crow, who gave lavish trips to Clarence Thomas, has donated $13M to GOP
WASHINGTON — Harlan Crow, the Dallas investor whose lavish secret trips with Justice Clarence Thomas have sparked an intense debate about Supreme Court ethics, is a GOP megadonor with many friends in high places. In the last three decades, the billionaire real estate magnate has donated $14.7 million to candidates...
Texas governor seeks to pardon Army sergeant convicted of murderVideo
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Saturday that he is seeking to pardon a U.S. Army sergeant who was convicted of murder in the 2020 fatal shooting of an armed protester during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice. Abbott tweeted that because the state constitution limits...
More buses from Texas? Philly ready to welcome immigrants as pandemic ban drops
PHILADELPHIA — From shortly before Thanksgiving until after the New Year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent nearly a thousand immigrants to Philadelphia aboard unscheduled, unannounced buses. The last of 19 coaches pulled up outside 30th Street Station on Jan. 7. And since then … nothing. What at first seemed a...
Expelled Tennessee lawmakers both seeking seats again
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — One of the two Black Democrats who was thrown out of the Tennessee House last week appeared likely to get his seat back Monday, just days after the GOP exacted retribution against the lawmakers who called for more gun control. Nashville’s Metro Council could return Justin Jones...
Unemployment fell to 3.5% under Biden. For how much longer?
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden keeps seeing good economic news and bad public approval ratings. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5% in March. More than 236,000 jobs were added. But there has been no political payoff for the president. A poll last month by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public...
