Andrew Cuomo snubbed Alex Azar, skipped 17 White House meetings

Texas becomes first US state to exceed 1 million COVID-19 cases

Texas has become the first US state to exceed 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University early Wednesday. The Lone Star State has now recorded 1,010,364 coronavirus cases with 19,337 deaths since the pandemic began in early March, the figures show. The morbid milestone comes after the nation’s second-most populous […]

Armenians protest over Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire deal

YEREVAN – Armenian police arrested an opposition leader and several others who tried to stage a rally on Wednesday demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resign over a ceasefire deal that ended fighting with Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. The protesters briefly chanted “Nikol is a traitor!” before they were detained in the capital Yerevan, but others started […]

Alaska win puts GOP a seat away from keeping Senate majority

Dan Sullivan won re-election in Alaska on Wednesday — putting the Republicans within one seat of maintaining their majority in the U.S. Senate. The Republican incumbent defeated independent challenger Al Gross who was running with the backing of Democrats, meaning control of the Senate will come down to two runoff elections in Georgia between GOP […]

Trump pays Veterans Day respects at Arlington National Cemetery

President Trump paid his respects on Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery. The 45th commander-in-chief was joined at the rainy ceremony Wednesday by First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Second Lady Karen Pence. The president, who had not held a public event since the 2020 presidential race was called for […]

Florida mom arrested during school board meeting on mask rule

A Florida mom was arrested for refusing to wear a mask at a school board meeting in which officials voted in favor of continuing to require them in the classroom, cops said. Kari Turner, 40, was seen on video being cuffed in front of her two children Tuesday at the Pinellas County School Board hearing […]

Hospitals at capacity in parts of Wisconsin amid COVID-19 spike

Hospitals in northwestern Wisconsin are at 100 percent capacity, officials said, as the state continues to battle a record number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. The Mayo Clinic Health System, which operates hospitals in the region encompassing Barron, Bloomer, Eau Claire, Osseo and Menomonie, said all of their beds were full as of Tuesday afternoon, […]

Ex-cop in Breonna Taylor case accused of sexual assault

A former Louisville police detective involved in the botched raid that ended in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor has been accused by a woman of sexual assault after offering her a ride home from a bar in 2018, according to a report. Margo Borders, an attorney, accused Brett Hankison of “willfully, intentionally, painfully and […]

South Carolina GOP lawmakers back probe into voter fraud claims

South Carolina Republican lawmakers are backing Attorney General Bill Barr’s authorization of federal prosecutors to investigate “substantial allegations” of voter fraud in the 2020 election, according to a report. The 30 state House members said in a letter obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press that they “write with concern over the legitimacy of the 2020 […]

Medical workers who took Russian vaccine infected with COVID-19: report

Three Siberian health-care workers who received Russia’s so-called Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine have tested positive for the deadly bug, according to reports. Officials in the Altai region reported that the three were among 42 medical workers who received the two-dose vaccine, which Russian health officials say is 92 percent effective, the Moscow Times reported. “The […]

Bahrain’s long-serving prime minister dead at 84

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bahrain’s Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, one of the world’s longest-serving prime ministers who led his island nation’s government for decades and survived the 2011 Arab Spring protests that demanded his ouster over corruption allegations, died on Wednesday. He was 84. Bahrain’s state-run news agency announced his death, saying […]

Minnesota deer hunter bags 10-point buck — and an alligator

A Minnesota deer hunter had an opening day to remember, bagging a 10-point buck — and an alligator. Cory Klocek described the odd chain of the events from Saturday’s firearm hunting opener on Facebook, declaring, “only in 2020 can you go out to sit for deer gun season opener in Minnesota and shoot an alligator.” […]

Minnesota deer hunter bags 10-point buck — and an alligator

A Minnesota deer hunter had an opening day to remember, bagging a 10-point buck — and an alligator. Cory Klocek described the odd chain of the events from Saturday’s firearm hunting opener on Facebook, declaring, “only in 2020 can you go out to sit for deer gun season opener in Minnesota and shoot an alligator.” […]

Minnesota deer hunter bags 10-point buck — and an alligator

A Minnesota deer hunter had an opening day to remember, bagging a 10-point buck — and an alligator. Cory Klocek described the odd chain of the events from Saturday’s firearm hunting opener on Facebook, declaring, “only in 2020 can you go out to sit for deer gun season opener in Minnesota and shoot an alligator.” […]

Minnesota deer hunter bags 10-point buck — and an alligator

A Minnesota deer hunter had an opening day to remember, bagging a 10-point buck — and an alligator. Cory Klocek described the odd chain of the events from Saturday’s firearm hunting opener on Facebook, declaring, “only in 2020 can you go out to sit for deer gun season opener in Minnesota and shoot an alligator.” […]

Vanuatu records 1st COVID-19 case after man returns from US

Vanuatu has recorded its first case of the coronavirus after a citizen who had been repatriated from the United States tested positive while in quarantine. The Pacific nation had been among the last few countries to have avoided the virus altogether. Health authorities say the 23-year-old man was asymptomatic when he returned on Nov. 4 […]

School lunch company produced juice with high levels of arsenic: report

A company that supplied a federal school lunch program sold juice with high levels of arsenic and used rotten fruit in their product, the FDA charged in a new lawsuit, according to a report. In the suit, which was filed in federal court in Washington state against the company Valley Processing, food safety inspectors said […]

Newborns not likely to contract COVID-19 in the hospital, study says

Newborns are very unlikely to contract the coronavirus while hospitalized, according to a new study. Researchers in the United Kingdom found just 66 cases of COVID-19 in newborns among 10,000 births at hospitals from March 1 through April 30, according to the study published in The Lancet medical journal. “Neonatal SARS-CoV-2 infection is uncommon in […]

CDC suggests Americans have Thanksgiving outside

The Center for Disease Control suggested Americans who are hosting Thanksgiving dinners have their meals outside to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. The public health agency gave a number of other suggestions about how to celebrate Thanksgiving safely in updated guidance about the holiday. In addition to an outdoor meal, the CDC said […]

Thousands of NY voters can fix faulty ballot statements now

Thousands of New Yorkers whose absentee ballots were disqualified for mailing errors have time to correct the problem weeks after the election under a new state law. The city Board of Elections preliminary report released Tuesday found that 96 percent of the record 713,536 absentee ballots received in the mail during the coronavirus pandemic — […]

COVID-19 hospitalizations hit record high, peaking in 3 states

COVID-19 hospitalization rates hit an all-time high in the US on Tuesday, as the illness peaked in at least three states. A record 61,964 people were hospitalized with the virus nationwide, according to a tally kept by the COVID Tracking Project. That number exceeds levels reached in the early days of the pandemic, when 59,940 […]

Want to flip a state blue? Stacey Abrams drops major key, and she would know

Abrams’ name trended on Twitter when President-elect Joe Biden inched ahead of President Donald Trump in Georgia, flipping a state that hasn’t backed a Democrat for president since Bill Clinton in 1992. And when Biden went on to be declared the next U.S. president Saturday, a crowd outside of the White House shouted “Stacey Abrams.” Not […]

Woman in undies forces plane to land early

A boozed-up woman stripped off her pants on a flight to Texas and took a swing at a flight attendant — forcing the plane to be diverted to Alabama, reports and a witness said. Sierra Nicole McClinton, 25, was drunken and and first threw up on herself aboard the Houston-bound CommutAir flight from Jacksonville, Fla., […]

New Zealand dad dies in ‘freak accident’ on way to jury duty

A New Zealand dad has died in a “freak accident” on his way to report for jury duty. Raymond Luo’s family believes he tripped, fell and hit his head on a hard object while walking through Albert Park in Auckland last week to the courthouse, the New Zealand Herald reported. “Raymond could have been looking […]

Biden vows to push ahead with transition as Trump challenges

Joe Biden took questions from reporters for the first time since the presidential race was called in his favor, telling reporters in Wilmington on Tuesday that nothing would stop his transition even as President Trump challenges the results of the election. The White House has directed senior government agencies to snub Biden’s transition team and […]

Republican Thom Tillis wins re-election in North Carolina

Thom Tillis, the GOP senator from North Carolina, has won re-election after a nail-biting, days-long count, handing the Republican Party a major victory as it looks to hold onto control of the Senate. Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham called the incumbent on Tuesday, one week after Americans went to the polls, to concede the race. “I […]

Biden gets congratulatory calls from Boris Johnson, Trudeau

President-elect Joe Biden has had conversations with world leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Biden spoke by phone first with Trudeau Monday evening, the Biden transition team said, during which he congratulated the former vice president on the race being called in his favor. The two discussed working […]

ISIS-linked terrorists behead more than 50 people in Mozambique

Terrorists linked to ISIS turned a soccer pitch in Mozambique into a three-day “execution ground” — beheading and chopping up more than 50 people, according to local officials. The execution squad first attacked several villages in Miudumbe and Macomia, abducting women and children and burning down homes, police told a press conference, according to Al […]

McCabe admits he wouldn’t have signed off on Carter Page warrant

WASHINGTON — Former deputy FBI chief Andrew McCabe was grilled by lawmakers on Tuesday who leveled charges that the agency had “gone rogue” in the origins of the Russia probe into President Trump’s campaign. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) hammered the former deputy FBI director over the agency’s failure to act when the CIA […]

Dr. Anthony Fauci honored in Brooklyn as a ‘COVID Hero’

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Brooklyn-born member of the White House coronavirus task force, was honored Tuesday as a borough “COVID Hero” for his role in providing guidance during the pandemic. “It is a privilege to recognize a widely-admired public health official and a proud son of Brooklyn, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as one of our COVID […]

Woman snuck onto flight without ticket to see Jay-Z: prosecutors

A Chicago woman skirted past several layers of security and somehow boarded a plane at O’Hare International Airport without a ticket, hoping to fly to Los Angeles to see rapper Jay-Z, prosecutors said. Yaazmina Payton, 23, was arrested at the Chicago airport early Sunday after she was identified as the woman who “boarded an airplane […]