Alex Jones seeks new trial after $1B Sandy Hook verdict
HARTFORD, Conn. — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has asked a Connecticut judge to throw out a nearly $1 billion verdict against him and order a new trial in a lawsuit by Sandy Hook families, who say they were subjected to harassment and threats from Jones’ lies about the 2012 Newtown...
Venezuelans expelled from U.S. decide next steps in Mexico
MEXICO CITY — In a shelter on Mexico City’s east side, Venezuelan mechanic José Cuicas is waiting anxiously for an American friend to answer his request to sponsor him for one of the 24,000 visas the Biden administration says it will give to Venezuelans. Cuicas was one of some 1,700...
Explainer: Why the British public is not choosing its leader
LONDON — Observers of Britain’s governing structure can be forgiven for scratching their heads in recent weeks as they watch the country reel through a succession of prime ministers without holding an election. While the opposition Labour Party is demanding an election, the governing conservatives are pushing on with choosing...
Russian-installed authorities order evacuation of Kherson
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all residents of the city of Kherson to leave “immediately” Saturday ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive to recapture one of the first urban areas Russia took after invading the country. In a post on the Telegram...
Jail officials across Pa. sound alarm as mental health crisis puts people at risk, survey finds
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. County jails across Pennsylvania lack the resources to address a growing mental health crisis, putting some of the most vulnerable incarcerated...
Most outside spending on Pa. governor’s race has one aim: to defeat Doug Mastriano
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 — In the nationally watched race for Pennsylvania governor, Democrat Josh Shapiro has outspent Republican rival Doug Mastriano by tens...
Biden student debt relief plan blocked by appeals court
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court late Friday issued an administrative stay temporarily blocking President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay while it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the loan cancellation...
Tennessee GOP leaders vow to ban transgender youth care
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Top Tennessee Republicans on Friday vowed to push for some of the strictest anti-transgender policies in the United States at a rally Friday, where hundreds of people cheered in support as LGBTQ rights activists yelled back in protest. The rally comes nearly a month after video surfaced...
Democrat for Florida governor dismisses manager over arrest
MIAMI — Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist’s campaign manager has left his position after being charged in a domestic violence case. Austin Durrer was charged Tuesday with misdemeanor assault in Dorchester County, Maryland, according to online court records. The Crist campaign announced in a Wednesday statement that Durrer had resigned,...
Doorbell video shows malnourished Texas twins seeking help
CYPRESS, Texas — A mother whose twin teenagers told police in Texas they were handcuffed and forced to drink bleach was in jail Friday in neighboring Louisiana, where records show the woman had pleaded guilty a decade earlier to charges of putting her kids in danger. Zaikiya Duncan, 40, was...
Justice Kagan at UPenn: ‘Time will tell’ if court finds common ground
WASHINGTON — Justice Elena Kagan on Friday waded into the issue of divisiveness on the Supreme Court, saying that “time will tell” whether the court can get back to “finding common ground” after a term in which its six conservatives and three liberals split over contentious issues like abortion and...
Tennessee man receives 4 years in prison for Capitol breach
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee business owner who scaled a wall outside the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to four years in prison after he was convicted of five charges connected to the raid on Jan. 6, 2021, federal prosecutors said. Matthew Bledsoe, 38, of Olive Branch, Miss., was found...
Guilty plea due in Michigan school shooting that killed 4
DETROIT — A teenager accused of killing four fellow students and injuring more at a Michigan high school is expected to plead guilty to murder next week, authorities said Friday. Ethan Crumbley had created images of violence during a classroom assignment last November but was not sent home from Oxford...
Jan. 6 panel issues subpoena to Trump, demanding he testify
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol issued a subpoena Friday to Donald Trump, exercising its subpoena power against the former president who lawmakers say “personally orchestrated” a multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The nine-member panel issued a...
Bannon gets 4 months behind bars for defying 1/6 subpoena
WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was sentenced Friday to serve four months behind bars after defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols allowed Bannon to stay free pending appeal...
Climate questions: How does carbon dioxide trap heat?
That carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat is something scientists have known about for more than a 150 years. The underlying concept behind climate change is simple enough that school children can replicate the chemistry and physics and so can you. The why and how it happens is...
Mississippi community with Confederate monument gets Emmett Till statue
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi community with an elaborate Confederate monument plans to unveil a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, decades after white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager for allegedly whistling at a white woman in a country store. The 1955 lynching became a catalyst for...
Russian threats revive old nuclear fears in central Europe
WARSAW, Poland — Two stories beneath a modern steel production plant on Warsaw’s northern edge lies an untouched Cold War relic: a shelter containing gas masks, stretchers, first aid kits and other items meant to help civil defense leaders survive and guide rescue operations in case of nuclear attack or...
Italy’s far-right leader formally asks for mandate to govern
ROME — Italian politician Giorgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, said Friday that she and her allies have asked the nation’s president to give her the mandate to form what would be Italy’s first far-right-led government since the end of World War II. Meloni and her campaign allies met...
Ukrainian forces pile pressure on Russian-held Kherson
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces continued to pile on the pressure on Russian positions in occupied Kherson Friday, targeting resupply routes across the Dnieper river as Kyiv inched closer to a full-scale assault to retake the strategic southern port city. As many as 2,000 Russian draftees have poured into the...
Biden stumps for Pa.’s Fetterman, says ‘world is looking’
PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden said Thursday that the “rest of the world is looking” to see who holds control of Congress after the upcoming midterm elections, warning that Republican victories would jeopardize the nation’s standing abroad as he tried to deliver a boost to Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman’s campaign...
Report: Elon Musk plans to cut 75% of Twitter workforce
SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk plans to lay off most of Twitter’s workforce if and when he becomes owner of the social media company, according to a report Thursday by The Washington Post. Musk has told prospective investors in his Twitter purchase that he plans to cut nearly 75% of...
Military suicides drop as leaders push new programs
WASHINGTON — Suicides across the active duty U.S. military decreased over the past 18 months, driven by sharp drops in the Air Force and Marine Corps last year and a similar decline among Army soldiers during the first six months of this year, according to a new Pentagon report and...
Railroads reject sick time demands, raising chance of strike
OMAHA, Neb. — The major freight railroads appear unwilling to give track maintenance workers much more than they received in the initial contract they rejected last week, increasing the chances of a strike. The railroads took the unusual step of issuing a statement late Wednesday rejecting the Brotherhood of Maintenance...
Jury: Kevin Spacey didn’t molest actor Anthony Rapp in 1986
NEW YORK — A jury sided with Kevin Spacey on Thursday in one of the lawsuits that derailed the film star’s career, finding he did not sexually abuse Anthony Rapp, then 14, while both were relatively unknown actors in Broadway plays in 1986. The verdict in the civil trial came...
