Developing nations push for climate action and debt relief at G20 summit in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG — Poorer nations attending the Group of 20 summit in South Africa have used the meeting to push leaders on climate action and high levels of debt, issues directly affecting the developing world. They have also sought to position themselves as economic partners with much to offer in sectors...
Israel targets senior Hezbollah official in first strike on Beirut in months
HARET HREIK, Lebanon — Israel’s military says it has killed senior Hezbollah militant Haytham Tabtabai in its strike in Beirut on Sunday. The military in a statement described Tabtabai as the Iran-backed militant group’s chief of staff. Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Tabtabai had led Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Unit. In...
Pope calls on kidnappers in Nigeria to free 265 students and teachers after 50 pupils escape
ABUJA, Nigeria — Fifty of the 303 schoolchildren abducted from a Catholic school in north-central Nigeria’s Niger state have escaped captivity and are now with their families, the school authority said Sunday, as the pope called for the immediate release of those still missing. The schoolchildren, aged between 10 and...
Increased school funding could lead to higher test scores — but it’s often more complicated
When it comes to education spending, more isn’t always better. At least that’s what the numbers — standardized test scores and per-student spending — suggest about Southwestern Pennsylvania’s school districts. School districts that spend the most per student do not always have the highest test scores, according to data from...
Airlines cancel Venezuela flights on U.S. security warning
Airlines canceled flights in and out of Venezuela in response to a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration advisory telling operators to “exercise caution” amid an escalating standoff between the U.S. and Nicolas Maduro’s regime. Carriers including Colombia’s Avianca, Tap — Transportes Aereos Portugueses, Lan Airlines, Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA and...
JFK’s granddaughter reveals terminal cancer diagnosis, criticizes cousin RFK Jr.
Former President John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter disclosed Saturday that she has terminal cancer, writing in an essay in “The New Yorker” that one of her doctors said she might live for about another year. Tatiana Schlossberg, the daughter of Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, wrote that she was...
Loop shootings leave 14-year-old boy dead and several wounded, including 7 shot outside Chicago Theatre
CHICAGO — Nine teenagers were shot, one fatally, in a pair of shootings less than an hour apart on Friday night in Chicago’s Loop, according to Chicago police. Officers from the city’s Central (1st) district were on patrol around 9:50 p.m. at 164 N. State St., just outside the Chicago...
Trump teaming up with Jack Nicklaus to revamp ‘president’s golf course’ at Joint Base Andrews
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he’s enlisting the help of legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus to spruce up the courses at Joint Base Andrews — adding a site long known as the “president’s golf course” to his long and still- growing list of construction projects. The president took an aerial...
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s exit opens room for new political unknown in Georgia
CHATSWORTH, Ga. — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene built her career as one of Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders. Now, after a dramatic turn against the president she once championed, she’s walking away from a Washington that she said “despised” her. What comes next for her — and for Georgia politics...
Texas A&M committee rules professor’s firing over gender identity lesson was unjustified
A Texas A&M committee agreed that the university was wrong to fire a professor earlier this year after a controversy over a classroom video that showed a student objecting to a children’s literature lesson about gender identity. The internal committee ruled that the university didn’t follow proper procedures and didn’t...
Scientists push back as Trump and RFK Jr. promote false links between vaccines and autism
The message is hammered over and over, in news conferences, hearings and executive orders: President Donald Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say they want the government to follow “gold standard” science. Scientists say the problem is that they are often doing just the opposite by relying...
Fire on Los Angeles container ship prompts shelter-in-place order for nearby communities
LOS ANGELES — A fire that broke out aboard a Los Angeles container ship on Friday continued to burn overnight, prompting a shelter in place order for surrounding communities over concerns about hazardous materials within the ship’s cargo. All 23 crew members of the ship were accounted for and there...
Israel launches new strikes in Gaza against Hamas in ceasefire’s latest test
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s military on Saturday said it launched airstrikes against Hamas militants in Gaza in the latest test of the ceasefire that began on Oct. 10. Health officials in Gaza reported at least 14 people killed and another 45 wounded, including children. Similar waves of strikes...
Ukraine’s allies push back on U.S. peace plan seen as favoring Moscow
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s Western allies rallied around the war-torn country on Saturday as they pushed to revise a U.S. peace plan seen as favoring Moscow despite its all-out invasion of its neighbor. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed Ukrainians “will always defend” their home. A Ukrainian delegation, bolstered by representatives...
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, former Trump loyalist, says she is resigning from Congress
WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a loyal supporter-turned-critic of President Donald Trump who faced his political retribution if she sought reelection, said Friday she is resigning from Congress in January. Greene, in a more than 10-minute video posted online, explained her decision and said she didn’t want...
Supreme Court blocks order that found Texas congressional map is likely racially biased
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that found Texas’ 2026 congressional redistricting plan pushed by President Donald Trump likely discriminates on the basis of race. The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito will remain in place at least for the next few...
Info to decipher secret message in Kryptos sculpture at CIA headquarters sells for close to $1M
BOSTON — The information needed to decipher the last remaining unsolved secret message embedded within a sculpture at CIA headquarters in Virginia sold at auction for nearly $1 million, the auction house announced Friday. The winner will get a private meeting with the 80-year-old artist to go over the codes...
RFK Jr. says he personally directed CDC’s new guidance on vaccines and autism
NEW YORK — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally directed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update its website to contradict its longtime guidance that vaccines don’t cause autism, he told The New York Times in an interview published Friday. His comments provide clarity into who...
Abortion is illegal again in North Dakota after court reverses a judge’s earlier decision
BISMARCK, N.D. — Abortion is again illegal in North Dakota after the state’s Supreme Court on Friday couldn’t muster the required majority to uphold a judge’s ruling that struck down the state’s ban last year. The law makes it a felony crime for anyone to perform an abortion, though it...
Flu activity is low, but experts worry about a new strain and vaccination rates
NEW YORK — The U.S. flu season is starting slowly, and it’s unclear if it will be as bad as last winter’s, but some health experts are worried as U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data posted Friday shows a new version of the virus has emerged. An early...
See how much money your Pa. school district will receive to close adequacy, tax burden gaps
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. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts will each receive a slice of $565 million that lawmakers put in this...
Trump and Mamdani go from adversaries to bromance after White House meeting
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday met the man who had proudly proclaimed himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare,” but he seemed to find the opposite. The Republican president and New York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani were warm and friendly, speaking repeatedly of their shared goals to help Trump’s hometown...
Trump administration sues California over giving in-state tuition to immigrants in U.S. illegally
SAN DIEGO — The Trump administration has sued California for providing in-state college tuition, scholarships, and state-funded financial aid to students who do not have legal status to be in the United States. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, alleges the...
Kashoggi’s widow and Democrats demand release of a call transcript with Trump and Saudi crown prince
WASHINGTON — The widow of Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi called Friday for the release of the transcript of a 2019 phone call that President Donald Trump had with Mohammed bin Salman, joining Democratic lawmakers who are raising questions about whether Trump personally benefitted from his embrace of the Saudi...
Motorist in North Carolina tells 911: ‘I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield’
A motorist in western North Carolina escaped injury when the carcass of a cat crashed into the passenger side of her front windshield along a highway near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In a call to 911, the unidentified driver on U.S. Route 74 in Swain County, near Bryson...
