The train derailments that took place on February 3rd on the Ohio and east of Pennsylvania border has become a major issue of concern as the disposal of the toxic waste from the derailment turns into a topic for deliberation and discussions that lasted longer than expected.

Ohio Train Derailment: EPA halts picking up toxic waste, 5 truckloads returned to site

Suspect in the killings of four students of University of Idaho, has been arrested in Pennsylvania. The 28-year-old Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested by the Pennsylvania state police at his home.

US: Idaho killing suspect arrested, motive of brutal killing not revealed

A 16-year-old Pennsylvania boy reportedly admitted through Instagram video chat of murdering a 13-year-old girl. After he was taken into custody, he informed police that "it was an accident," read the criminal complaint. The incident took place in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Police on Friday afternoon was alerted by a girl that she reportedly received a video call and text messages from Joshua Cooper. The girl said that in an Instagram video chat, Cooper told her that he had killed someone. Cooper also sought help from the girl for disposing the body, the complaint said.

When police arrived at Cooper's house in response to the report of the video chat, they observed a young guy sprinting out from the rear of the house who they suspect to be Cooper. Police found the 13-year-old victim inside the home with a "large caliber" gunshot wound to her chest, according to the complaint. The authorities said the girl's family later recognised the victim based on the jewellery she was wearing.

Later, police found and apprehended Cooper. The complaint claims that the suspect was making "unsolicited utterances" as he was being taken into custody. Cooper was saying “sorry” and that he is “going to jail for the rest of his life.” However, Cooper was denied bail on several adult charges which includes criminal homicide. The 16 years old was sent to a juvenile detention centre, according to a police statement, reported CNN.&nbsp;

According to the complaint, Cooper during an interview with detectives reportedly admitted to viewing a Netflix series with the victim in his house. The paper said that the suspect claimed to have been in a previous relationship with the victim. Additionally, according to the complaint, Cooper said that he had accessed his father's safe earlier that day and opened it by replacing the batteries that his father had taken out, rendering the combination lock unoperational. The document stated that he removed, rearranged, and replaced the weapons that were in the safe.

Cooper and his mother reportedly "terminated" the investigators' interview with them before it was finished. According to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office, Cooper's next court date is December 7.

A 16-year-old Pennsylvania boy reportedly admitted through Instagram video chat of murdering a 13-year-old girl. After he was taken into custody, he informed police that "it was an accident," read the criminal complaint.

A 16-year-old Pennsylvania boy reportedly admitted through Instagram video chat of murdering a 13-year-old girl. After he was taken into custody, he informed police that "it was an accident," read the criminal complaint. The incident took place in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Police on Friday afternoon was alerted by a girl that she reportedly received a video call and text messages from Joshua Cooper. The girl said that in an Instagram video chat, Cooper told her that he had killed someone. Cooper also sought help from the girl for disposing the body, the complaint said. When police arrived at Cooper's house in response to the report of the video chat, they observed a young guy sprinting out from the rear of the house who they suspect to be Cooper. Police found the 13-year-old victim inside the home with a "large caliber" gunshot wound to her chest, according to the complaint. The authorities said the girl's family later recognised the victim based on the jewellery she was wearing. Later, police found and apprehended Cooper. The complaint claims that the suspect was making "unsolicited utterances" as he was being taken into custody. Cooper was saying “sorry” and that he is “going to jail for the rest of his life.” However, Cooper was denied bail on several adult charges which includes criminal homicide. The 16 years old was sent to a juvenile detention centre, according to a police statement, reported CNN. According to the complaint, Cooper during an interview with detectives reportedly admitted to viewing a Netflix series with the victim in his house. The paper said that the suspect claimed to have been in a previous relationship with the victim. Additionally, according to the complaint, Cooper said that he had accessed his father's safe earlier that day and opened it by replacing the batteries that his father had taken out, rendering the combination lock unoperational. The document stated that he removed, rearranged, and replaced the weapons that were in the safe. Cooper and his mother reportedly "terminated" the investigators' interview with them before it was finished. According to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office, Cooper's next court date is December 7.

‘Sorry!’: On Instagram video, US teen confesses to killing girl, tells cop it was an ‘accident’

Republican officials in two counties of the United States’ Arizona and Pennsylvania have refused to certify the results of the midterm elections, on Monday. This comes after the Republicans on the election boards of Cochise County in Arizona and Luzerne County in Pennsylvania have voted against the motion in their respective counties.&nbsp;

The two GOP county supervisors on the three-person Cochise County election board have postponed the certification of the county's results and seemingly embraced voter fraud theories. Reportedly, they have raised concerns about the certification of the county’s voting machines, without evidence, while they have been repeatedly assured that the equipment is approved.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, on Monday, secretary of state and Democrat, Katie Hobbs who had previously threatened to sue the county for not certifying the elections, filed a lawsuit. She has reportedly asked the judge to order Cochise County to canvass (the official tally of votes) the election which she said was an obligation under state law.&nbsp;

On the other hand, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania faced a deadlock as two Democratic members in the election board moved to certify the results and two Republicans voted “no”, while the tie-breaker Democrat Daniel Schramm, abstained from voting. This comes after the county faced paper shortages on Election Day as voting centres ran out of ballots early in the day.&nbsp;

However, Schramm, in a phone interview with Associated Press said that after the meeting on Monday, he was reassured that only a few, if any, voters could not cast their ballots because of the shortage. Additionally, he was told that all provisional ballots were accounted for previously. Therefore, Schramm said that he will move to vote in favour of certifying the results in the next meeting on Wednesday.&nbsp;

“I wanted to research to see exactly how many people were just not allowed to vote. I couldn’t find any,” said the Democrat Schramm after election officials reportedly contacted 125 judges of elections from the county’s 187 precincts and said, “nobody being turned away.” Furthermore, the judge had extended the voting time in the Pennsylvania county by two hours on November 8 following the paper shortage.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

&nbsp;

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Republican officials in two counties of the United States’ Arizona and Pennsylvania have refused to certify the results of the midterm elections, on Monday. This comes after the Republicans on the election boards of Cochise County in Arizona and Luzerne County in Pennsylvania have voted against the motion in their respective counties.

Republican officials in two counties of the United States’ Arizona and Pennsylvania have refused to certify the results of the midterm elections, on Monday. This comes after the Republicans on the election boards of Cochise County in Arizona and Luzerne County in Pennsylvania have voted against the motion in their respective counties. The two GOP county supervisors on the three-person Cochise County election board have postponed the certification of the county's results and seemingly embraced voter fraud theories. Reportedly, they have raised concerns about the certification of the county’s voting machines, without evidence, while they have been repeatedly assured that the equipment is approved. Meanwhile, on Monday, secretary of state and Democrat, Katie Hobbs who had previously threatened to sue the county for not certifying the elections, filed a lawsuit. She has reportedly asked the judge to order Cochise County to canvass (the official tally of votes) the election which she said was an obligation under state law. On the other hand, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania faced a deadlock as two Democratic members in the election board moved to certify the results and two Republicans voted “no”, while the tie-breaker Democrat Daniel Schramm, abstained from voting. This comes after the county faced paper shortages on Election Day as voting centres ran out of ballots early in the day. However, Schramm, in a phone interview with Associated Press said that after the meeting on Monday, he was reassured that only a few, if any, voters could not cast their ballots because of the shortage. Additionally, he was told that all provisional ballots were accounted for previously. Therefore, Schramm said that he will move to vote in favour of certifying the results in the next meeting on Wednesday. “I wanted to research to see exactly how many people were just not allowed to vote. I couldn’t find any,” said the Democrat Schramm after election officials reportedly contacted 125 judges of elections from the county’s 187 precincts and said, “nobody being turned away.” Furthermore, the judge had extended the voting time in the Pennsylvania county by two hours on November 8 following the paper shortage. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Republican officials refuse to certify midterm elections results in Arizona, Pennsylvania counties

A tanker carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel overturned early Thursday in Pennsylvania's Bethlehem, US media outlets reported, citing local police. The reports further mentioned that in the aftermath, hundreds of homes in the region were evacuated.&nbsp;

As per the police, the driver of the truck was transported to the hospital. The driver received some non-life-threatening injuries. The police also said that they evacuated residences within a 1,000-foot radius of the crash site. The officers went door-to-door and also reverse 911 calls were made.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, a school in the region has been used as a shelter for displaced families. The statement posted on the Bethlehem Area School District's website noted: "Due to a fuel spill on the west side of Bethlehem, our school is being used as a shelter for displaced families."&nbsp;

"We will delay the opening of school for two hours to ensure that our building is ready to function normally for students and staff while also serving our community's needs," it added.&nbsp;

The respective authorities said that they are still investigating what actually caused that accident, and also mentioned that the cleanup will continue throughout the day.&nbsp;

The American Red Cross said in a tweet: "At the request of Northampton EMA, we are responding to the area of Paul Ave &amp; West Union Blvd in Bethlehem (PA) following a significant fuel oil spill affecting hundreds of homes".&nbsp;

"Currently, we are providing canteen services to responders, mobilizing shelter teams to support the evacuation site, and coordinating with local officials to determine community needs and next steps. This response (&amp; spill) is still active," it added.&nbsp;

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A tanker carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel overturned early Thursday in Pennsylvania's Bethlehem, US media outlets reported, citing local police.

A tanker carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel overturned early Thursday in Pennsylvania's Bethlehem, US media outlets reported, citing local police. The reports further mentioned that in the aftermath, hundreds of homes in the region were evacuated. As per the police, the driver of the truck was transported to the hospital. The driver received some non-life-threatening injuries. The police also said that they evacuated residences within a 1,000-foot radius of the crash site. The officers went door-to-door and also reverse 911 calls were made. Meanwhile, a school in the region has been used as a shelter for displaced families. The statement posted on the Bethlehem Area School District's website noted: "Due to a fuel spill on the west side of Bethlehem, our school is being used as a shelter for displaced families." "We will delay the opening of school for two hours to ensure that our building is ready to function normally for students and staff while also serving our community's needs," it added. The respective authorities said that they are still investigating what actually caused that accident, and also mentioned that the cleanup will continue throughout the day. The American Red Cross said in a tweet: "At the request of Northampton EMA, we are responding to the area of Paul Ave & West Union Blvd in Bethlehem (PA) following a significant fuel oil spill affecting hundreds of homes". "Currently, we are providing canteen services to responders, mobilizing shelter teams to support the evacuation site, and coordinating with local officials to determine community needs and next steps. This response (& spill) is still active," it added. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

US: Thousands of gallons of fuel spilled after tanker crashed, hundreds of homes evacuated

Over a dozen children were hospitalised after a carbon monoxide leak was reported from a daycare centre in Pennsylvania.

The firefighters got a call from the Happy Smiles Learning Center in Allentown on Tuesday about an unconscious child. When they arrived, their monitors alerted them of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, department spokesperson John Christopher said.

When several people had symptoms, the response from the emergency services became much more substantial, he noted.

Twenty-five kids and eight staffers were immediately evacuated after the paramedics declared the scene to be a mass casualty incident, he said.

According to local media reports, the gas leak was classified as a level 1 mass casualty incident, which means that area emergency services and hospitals could become overwhelmed by the large numbers of affected people.

According to WPVI, 27 people were transported to four hospitals in the Lehigh Valley. All of them are reported to be in stable condition. However, it wasn't immediately clear how many of those patients were children.

Several other fire departments and first responders are providing mutual aid at the scene, Christopher said, adding that some kids were taken to the hospital by their parents.

Christophe said that other departments, including firefighters and emergency responders, are being pressed in to help strengthen the local response.

Officials said there isn’t a carbon monoxide detector in the building, even though a legislation was passed last month saying that all childcare facilities in the state need to have a detector.

They had a deadline of 30 days, which has not yet passed.

But The Happy Smiles director said detector installation plans were already in place, WFMZ reported.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Over a dozen children were hospitalised after a carbon monoxide leak was reported from a daycare centre in Pennsylvania. The firefighters got a call from the Happy Smiles Learning Center in Allentown on Tuesday about an unconscious child.

Over a dozen children were hospitalised after a carbon monoxide leak was reported from a daycare centre in Pennsylvania. The firefighters got a call from the Happy Smiles Learning Center in Allentown on Tuesday about an unconscious child. When they arrived, their monitors alerted them of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, department spokesperson John Christopher said. When several people had symptoms, the response from the emergency services became much more substantial, he noted. Twenty-five kids and eight staffers were immediately evacuated after the paramedics declared the scene to be a mass casualty incident, he said. According to local media reports, the gas leak was classified as a level 1 mass casualty incident, which means that area emergency services and hospitals could become overwhelmed by the large numbers of affected people. According to WPVI, 27 people were transported to four hospitals in the Lehigh Valley. All of them are reported to be in stable condition. However, it wasn't immediately clear how many of those patients were children. Several other fire departments and first responders are providing mutual aid at the scene, Christopher said, adding that some kids were taken to the hospital by their parents. Christophe said that other departments, including firefighters and emergency responders, are being pressed in to help strengthen the local response. Officials said there isn’t a carbon monoxide detector in the building, even though a legislation was passed last month saying that all childcare facilities in the state need to have a detector. They had a deadline of 30 days, which has not yet passed. But The Happy Smiles director said detector installation plans were already in place, WFMZ reported. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Dozens of kids hospitalised after carbon monoxide leak in US daycare centre

During a rally in Pennsylvania, former US President Donald Trump stated that President Joe Biden is an 'Enemy of the state'. He also slammed the FBI raid at his house that took place last month and said that it was a travesty of justice.

Former US President Donald Trump brands President Biden 'Enemy of the state'

The United States President Joe Biden is heading to Philadelphia to deliver a rare prime time speech on what he calls 'the battle for the soul of the nation'. His speech will take place near the building where the declaration of independence and the US constitution were adopted.

Pennsylvania: Key to crucial midterms elections, Biden to give speech

Politics have heated up in the US ahead of midterm polls. US President Joe Biden is all set to visit Pennsylvania. POTUS will speak on reducing crime rates.

US President Joe Biden to visit Pennsylvania, POTUS will speak on reducing crime rates

The family of a 1988 murder victim may now have a modicum of closure after DNA evidence in the 34-year-old case revealed the identity of the killer.

The case at hand is the horrifying murder of 26-year-old Pennsylvania resident Anna Kane, who was strangled to death with a rope, with her body left to rot in a wooded area close to Hamburg in October 1988.

Her body was found on Oct. 23, 1988, along Ontelaunee Trail in Perry Township.

Thanks to cutting-edge DNA genetic genealogy research, her killer has been identified as Scott Grim, Pennsylvania State Police and Berks County District Attorney John Adams announced at a news conference.

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In 1990, the Reading Eagle article newspaper published a story about the&nbsp;Pennsylvania woman asking the public for information. This piece indirectly resulted in the killer being found 30 years later.

After the murder, Kane's clothing was used to collect DNA evidence. When this evidence was processed, a male DNA profile that could not be identified was produced, but no match was found.

A "concerned citizen" wrote the Eagle a letter a few days after it was published. It contained "intricate" details regarding Kane's murder that only her perpetrator could be aware of. Detectives were unsure as to who wrote the letter but were certain that the author was Kane's killer.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/elon-musk-subpoenas-jack-dorsey-amid-bot-controversy-tesla-boss-misled-or-lost-interest-in-twitter-deal-509309">Elon Musk subpoenas Jack Dorsey amid bot controversy. Tesla boss 'misled' or lost interest in Twitter deal?</a>

The killer licked the envelope, and the DNA evidence from that assisted in identifying him.

According to a recent article in the Eagle, the murderer Grimm passed away at the age of 58 from natural causes in 2018.

On Thursday, as per NBC News, at the news conference, state police commended the detectives who looked into Kane's murder in 1988, stating that they kept up a "solid foundation" of physical evidence that was crucial to identifying Grimm.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-legislators-introduce-bill-to-ease-news-media-negotiations-with-google-facebook-509305" hreflang="en">US legislators introduce bill to ease news media negotiations with Google, Facebook</a>

Sergeant Nathan Trate said, "It was preserved as it should be, because they knew probably somewhere down the line what they collected could be that little piece of evidence of what they needed."&nbsp;

Well, it's the year 2022, and the tiniest piece of information they gathered was just what we needed to crack this case.

Capt. Robert Bailey of the local unit of the Pennsylvania State Police said that every victim deserves closure regardless of their background.

(With inputs from agencies)

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The family of a 1988 murder victim may now have a modicum of closure after DNA evidence in the 34-year-old case revealed the identity of the killer. The case at hand is the horrifying murder of 26-year-old Pennsylvania resident Anna Kane, who was strangled to death with a rope, with her body left to rot in a wooded area close to Hamburg in October 1988.

The family of a 1988 murder victim may now have a modicum of closure after DNA evidence in the 34-year-old case revealed the identity of the killer. The case at hand is the horrifying murder of 26-year-old Pennsylvania resident Anna Kane, who was strangled to death with a rope, with her body left to rot in a wooded area close to Hamburg in October 1988. Her body was found on Oct. 23, 1988, along Ontelaunee Trail in Perry Township. Thanks to cutting-edge DNA genetic genealogy research, her killer has been identified as Scott Grim, Pennsylvania State Police and Berks County District Attorney John Adams announced at a news conference. Watch | WION Fineprint | Magic Mushrooms can be safely used to treat depression, study finds In 1990, the Reading Eagle article newspaper published a story about the Pennsylvania woman asking the public for information. This piece indirectly resulted in the killer being found 30 years later. After the murder, Kane's clothing was used to collect DNA evidence. When this evidence was processed, a male DNA profile that could not be identified was produced, but no match was found. A "concerned citizen" wrote the Eagle a letter a few days after it was published. It contained "intricate" details regarding Kane's murder that only her perpetrator could be aware of. Detectives were unsure as to who wrote the letter but were certain that the author was Kane's killer. Also read | Elon Musk subpoenas Jack Dorsey amid bot controversy. Tesla boss 'misled' or lost interest in Twitter deal? The killer licked the envelope, and the DNA evidence from that assisted in identifying him. According to a recent article in the Eagle, the murderer Grimm passed away at the age of 58 from natural causes in 2018. On Thursday, as per NBC News, at the news conference, state police commended the detectives who looked into Kane's murder in 1988, stating that they kept up a "solid foundation" of physical evidence that was crucial to identifying Grimm. Also read | US legislators introduce bill to ease news media negotiations with Google, Facebook Sergeant Nathan Trate said, "It was preserved as it should be, because they knew probably somewhere down the line what they collected could be that little piece of evidence of what they needed." Well, it's the year 2022, and the tiniest piece of information they gathered was just what we needed to crack this case. Capt. Robert Bailey of the local unit of the Pennsylvania State Police said that every victim deserves closure regardless of their background. (With inputs from agencies) Watch WION LIVE HERE: You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Solved: Police identify the murderer in a 34-year-old cold case using DNA evidence

Authorities in Berwick, Pennsylvania reported that a car struck a crowd of people on Saturday, resulting in one fatality and 17 others injured. The guy is suspected of attacking a woman in the neighbourhood after the incident, State Trooper Anthony Petroski said, NCB news reported.

The trooper further stated that the suspect in both incidents is in custody. The 17 injured people were taken to various local hospitals in the area.

The crowds had gathered to raise money for the families of the three children and seven adults who had died in a house fire on August 5 in Nescopeck early in the morning.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/firefighter-in-pennsylvania-finds-10-dead-family-members-after-house-blaze-504286">Firefighter in Pennsylvania finds 10 family members dead after house blaze</a>

The fund-raising event was held at the Intoxicology Department bar and department. People also gathered in a nearby outdoor area with a variety of vendors and tents to attract attention.&nbsp;

According to the bar’s social media statement, the bar will be closed till further notice.

The post said, "Today was an absolute tragedy." "Please respect our privacy while we grieve and try to process the events that occurred," NCB reported.

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Shortly after the car incident, state police stated that the man physically assaulted a woman after the collision in the neighborhood.

Pennsylvania state police described the ongoing probe into the fire incident on August 5 as a "complex criminal investigation." The fire broke out around 3 a.m. Firefighters reported seeing flames that resisted their attempts to enter the house and rescue people. The authorities searched the debris after the house burned down. The fatalities reported were two boys, aged 5 and 6, a 7-year-old girl, and seven adults, ranging from 19 to 79.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Authorities in Berwick, Pennsylvania reported that a car struck a crowd of people on Saturday, resulting in one fatality and 17 others injured. The guy is suspected of attacking a woman in the neighbourhood after the incident, State Trooper Anthony Petroski said, NCB news reported.

Authorities in Berwick, Pennsylvania reported that a car struck a crowd of people on Saturday, resulting in one fatality and 17 others injured. The guy is suspected of attacking a woman in the neighbourhood after the incident, State Trooper Anthony Petroski said, NCB news reported. The trooper further stated that the suspect in both incidents is in custody. The 17 injured people were taken to various local hospitals in the area. The crowds had gathered to raise money for the families of the three children and seven adults who had died in a house fire on August 5 in Nescopeck early in the morning. Also read | Firefighter in Pennsylvania finds 10 family members dead after house blaze The fund-raising event was held at the Intoxicology Department bar and department. People also gathered in a nearby outdoor area with a variety of vendors and tents to attract attention. According to the bar’s social media statement, the bar will be closed till further notice. The post said, "Today was an absolute tragedy." "Please respect our privacy while we grieve and try to process the events that occurred," NCB reported. Also read | This country becomes first in world to provide free access to period products for all Shortly after the car incident, state police stated that the man physically assaulted a woman after the collision in the neighborhood. Pennsylvania state police described the ongoing probe into the fire incident on August 5 as a "complex criminal investigation." The fire broke out around 3 a.m. Firefighters reported seeing flames that resisted their attempts to enter the house and rescue people. The authorities searched the debris after the house burned down. The fatalities reported were two boys, aged 5 and 6, a 7-year-old girl, and seven adults, ranging from 19 to 79. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

One dead, 17 injured after vehicle struck a crowd in Pennsylvania

A firefighter who was called to the scene of a house fire found the victims were his own family after at least ten people were killed as the fire engulfed a house in the US state of Pennsylvania.&nbsp;

The house in Pennsylvania's Nescopeck town caught&nbsp;fire in the early morning hours on Friday as authorities identified the victims. Firefighter Harold Baker said the dead were his family, including&nbsp;his daughter, son, father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and three kids and&nbsp;two relatives. At least three people escaped the fire, reports said.

The three children were reportedly aged five, six and seven and the adults were in the 19 to 79 age group.

The authorities used sniffer dogs to search for the victims as the building was completely gutted. Baker said he tried to reach the house as fast as he could and tried to enter the house but was pulled away by colleagues.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Frances and I are heartbroken after seven adults and three children lost their lives in a house fire today in Luzerne County. 
 
Our prayers are with their loved ones. 
 
Thank you to the many first responders who rushed to the scene.
— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovernorTomWolf/status/1555698625157763072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2022</a></blockquote>
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The police have launched an investigation into the incident. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf while expressing his condolences said he was "heartbroken" while thanking the first responders who rushed to the scene.

(With inputs from agencies)

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A firefighter who was called to the scene of a house fire found the victims were his own family after at least ten people were killed as the fire engulfed a house in the US state of Pennsylvania.

A firefighter who was called to the scene of a house fire found the victims were his own family after at least ten people were killed as the fire engulfed a house in the US state of Pennsylvania. The house in Pennsylvania's Nescopeck town caught fire in the early morning hours on Friday as authorities identified the victims. Firefighter Harold Baker said the dead were his family, including his daughter, son, father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and three kids and two relatives. At least three people escaped the fire, reports said. The three children were reportedly aged five, six and seven and the adults were in the 19 to 79 age group. The authorities used sniffer dogs to search for the victims as the building was completely gutted. Baker said he tried to reach the house as fast as he could and tried to enter the house but was pulled away by colleagues. Frances and I are heartbroken after seven adults and three children lost their lives in a house fire today in Luzerne County. Our prayers are with their loved ones. Thank you to the many first responders who rushed to the scene. — Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) August 5, 2022 × The police have launched an investigation into the incident. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf while expressing his condolences said he was "heartbroken" while thanking the first responders who rushed to the scene. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE

Firefighter in Pennsylvania finds 10 family members dead after house blaze

Commercial space company Astrobotic unveiled its nearly complete robotic lunar lander, designed to take payloads for paying customers like NASA to the surface of the Moon.

Pennsylvania company unveils a robotic lunar lander

At least three people died, and scores were injured after a snow squall caused a massive accident at Pennsylvania interstate highway that saw cars being piled-up.

Visibility was compromised due to heavy fog and precipitation from the squall, causing a mass pile-up of about 40 vehicles on Interstate 81 on Monday.

About 20 people were taken to area hospitals, said John Blickley, deputy emergency management coordinator for Schuylkill County, reports CNN.

Over two dozen fire companies were rushed to the crash site, where multiple vehicles were on fire, Blickley said.

A video posted on social media on Monday shows a truck cruising along on a snow-covered highway around 11 am when the massive pileup appears suddenly in front of the driver.

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Then, one by one, passenger cars start crashing into each other in less than a minute as people start yelling to stop their vehicles.

The pileup snarled traffic for several miles on the highway, making it difficult for emergency responders and rescuers to reach the&nbsp;site.

Other videos show the aftermath of the pileup. Drone footage of the scene shows dozens of cars and trucks pointed in various directions across the road.

Parts of the United States have been under the spell of heavy cold as a strong arctic front moved across the New York and New England region on Monday.

<img alt=". Drone footage of the scene shows dozens of cars and trucks pointed in various directions across the road." data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="9cbee947-d7d2-41bc-8138-85a699400392" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/crash%202.png" />

According to the Associated Press news agency, the National Weather Service had warned of "numerous brief heavy snow squalls with very poor visibility."

"The squalls will quickly reduce the visibility to under one-half of a mile and coat the roads with snow," forecasters said, urging drivers to get off the road if possible or turn on hazard lights.

(With inputs from agencies)

At least three people died, and scores were injured after a snow squall caused a massive accident at Pennsylvania interstate highway that saw cars being piled-up.

At least three people died, and scores were injured after a snow squall caused a massive accident at Pennsylvania interstate highway that saw cars being piled-up. Visibility was compromised due to heavy fog and precipitation from the squall, causing a mass pile-up of about 40 vehicles on Interstate 81 on Monday. About 20 people were taken to area hospitals, said John Blickley, deputy emergency management coordinator for Schuylkill County, reports CNN. Over two dozen fire companies were rushed to the crash site, where multiple vehicles were on fire, Blickley said. A video posted on social media on Monday shows a truck cruising along on a snow-covered highway around 11 am when the massive pileup appears suddenly in front of the driver. × Then, one by one, passenger cars start crashing into each other in less than a minute as people start yelling to stop their vehicles. The pileup snarled traffic for several miles on the highway, making it difficult for emergency responders and rescuers to reach the site. Other videos show the aftermath of the pileup. Drone footage of the scene shows dozens of cars and trucks pointed in various directions across the road. Parts of the United States have been under the spell of heavy cold as a strong arctic front moved across the New York and New England region on Monday. According to the Associated Press news agency, the National Weather Service had warned of "numerous brief heavy snow squalls with very poor visibility." "The squalls will quickly reduce the visibility to under one-half of a mile and coat the roads with snow," forecasters said, urging drivers to get off the road if possible or turn on hazard lights. (With inputs from agencies)

Watch: 3 dead, scores injured in deadly car pile-up in snow-bound Pennsylvania highway

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed congressional maps that had been approved by state courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to stand, giving Democrats a leg up in this year’s election in two key states.

In issuing the orders, the Supreme Court rejected requests by Republicans to restore maps approved by GOP-controlled state legislatures. Those district lines were thrown out and replaced by courts in both states after challenges by Democrats.

Under the new court-imposed maps in both states, Democrats are likely to gain more seats than they would have under the legislature-approved versions.

But in the North Carolina case, there were signs that at least four of the court’s more conservative justices could later rule that state courts are powerless to change congressional maps adopted by state legislatures.

Such a ruling would fundamentally alter how congressional elections are conducted and amplify partisan gerrymandering, allowing the party that controls the legislature to draw voting districts favoring its candidates.

But that will not happen before this fall’s election.

Stanton Jones, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs who had challenged the North Carolina map, said the Supreme Court’s order meant that “North Carolina voters will now be able to vote in free and fair congressional elections this year.”

He said that for now, the order signaled an end to “a decade of extreme Republican gerrymanders.”

Still, the court’s three most conservative members — Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — said they would have blocked the North Carolina map because it was likely that the state Supreme Court had violated the Constitution in overriding the state Legislature.

“There must be some limit on the authority of state courts to countermand actions taken by state legislatures when they are prescribing rules for the conduct of federal elections,” Alito wrote.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a short concurring opinion agreeing that the question posed by the case was a substantial one. But he said the court should address it in the ordinary course rather than in response to an emergency application.

Taken together, the two opinions suggested that there are four justices ready to add a case on the question to the court’s docket when it is next presented in a petition seeking the court’s review rather than on what critics call the court’s shadow docket. It takes four votes to grant such review.

But it takes five votes to prevail. The swing vote would almost certainly belong to Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

In a second order in the Pennsylvania case, the court provisionally turned down a similar application on technical grounds without noted dissent.

The North Carolina Supreme Court had rejected a map drawn by Republican lawmakers that effectively gave their party at least 10 of the state’s 14 House seats, notwithstanding that voters statewide are roughly equally divided between the two parties.

A three-judge panel of the state Superior Court in Raleigh instead adopted a new map drawn by a nonpartisan panel of redistricting experts that appeared to split North Carolina’s congressional districts roughly equally between Republicans and Democrats. It gave each party six relatively safe House seats and made the other two competitive.

After the state Supreme Court refused to block that ruling, Republican state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.

In the Pennsylvania case, the state Supreme Court adopted a map that appears to give Republicans nine fairly safe seats and Democrats eight, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. Each party currently holds nine House seats, but Pennsylvania will lose a seat next year because of reapportionment after the 2020 census.

Voters and a Republican candidate for the House sued state officials in federal court to challenge the new map. When they did not receive immediate relief, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Both emergency applications relied on the Elections Clause of the Constitution, which says “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” That meant, the challengers argued, that the state legislature has sole responsibility for drawing congressional districts and that state courts have no role to play.

“The question presented here,” North Carolina Republicans wrote in their application, “goes to the very core of this nation’s democratic republic: what entity has the constitutional authority to set the rules of the road for federal elections.”

The North Carolina Supreme Court rejected that argument, sometimes called the independent state legislature doctrine, saying it was “repugnant to the sovereignty of states, the authority of state constitutions and the independence of state courts, and would produce absurd and dangerous consequences.”

But four justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have suggested that they are sympathetic to the doctrine. Three opinions issued in October 2020 seemed to endorse it.

“The provisions of the federal Constitution conferring on state legislatures, not state courts, the authority to make rules governing federal elections would be meaningless if a state court could override the rules adopted by the legislature simply by claiming that a state constitutional provision gave the courts the authority to make whatever rules it thought appropriate for the conduct of a fair election,” Alito, joined by Gorsuch and Thomas, wrote in a statement when the court refused to fast-track review of whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court could alter deadlines for mail ballots set by the legislature.

Along the same lines, Gorsuch, joined by Kavanaugh, wrote in a concurring opinion that “the Constitution provides that state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules.”

Kavanaugh, in another concurring opinion, wrote that “under the U.S. Constitution, the state courts do not have a blank check to rewrite state election laws for federal elections.”

Several Supreme Court decisions cut in the opposite direction.

In 2019, for instance, when the Supreme Court closed the doors of federal courts to claims of partisan gerrymandering in Rucho v. Common Cause, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the five most conservative members of the court, said state courts could continue to hear such cases — including in the context of congressional redistricting.

“Our conclusion does not condone excessive partisan gerrymandering,” he wrote. “Nor does our conclusion condemn complaints about districting to echo into a void. The states, for example, are actively addressing the issue on a number of fronts.”

He gave an example: “In 2015, the Supreme Court of Florida struck down that state’s congressional districting plan as a violation of the Fair Districts Amendment to the Florida Constitution,” adding that “provisions in state statutes and state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply.”

In 2015, in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, the court ruled that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing congressional district lines less partisan by creating an independent redistricting commission notwithstanding the Elections Clause.

“Nothing in that clause instructs, nor has this court ever held, that a state legislature may prescribe regulations on the time, place and manner of holding federal elections in defiance of provisions of the state’s constitution,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020, wrote in the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision. 
&nbsp;

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed congressional maps that had been approved by state courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to stand, giving Democrats a leg up in this year’s election in two key states.

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed congressional maps that had been approved by state courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to stand, giving Democrats a leg up in this year’s election in two key states. In issuing the orders, the Supreme Court rejected requests by Republicans to restore maps approved by GOP-controlled state legislatures. Those district lines were thrown out and replaced by courts in both states after challenges by Democrats. Under the new court-imposed maps in both states, Democrats are likely to gain more seats than they would have under the legislature-approved versions. But in the North Carolina case, there were signs that at least four of the court’s more conservative justices could later rule that state courts are powerless to change congressional maps adopted by state legislatures. Such a ruling would fundamentally alter how congressional elections are conducted and amplify partisan gerrymandering, allowing the party that controls the legislature to draw voting districts favoring its candidates. But that will not happen before this fall’s election. Stanton Jones, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs who had challenged the North Carolina map, said the Supreme Court’s order meant that “North Carolina voters will now be able to vote in free and fair congressional elections this year.” He said that for now, the order signaled an end to “a decade of extreme Republican gerrymanders.” Still, the court’s three most conservative members — Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — said they would have blocked the North Carolina map because it was likely that the state Supreme Court had violated the Constitution in overriding the state Legislature. “There must be some limit on the authority of state courts to countermand actions taken by state legislatures when they are prescribing rules for the conduct of federal elections,” Alito wrote. Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a short concurring opinion agreeing that the question posed by the case was a substantial one. But he said the court should address it in the ordinary course rather than in response to an emergency application. Taken together, the two opinions suggested that there are four justices ready to add a case on the question to the court’s docket when it is next presented in a petition seeking the court’s review rather than on what critics call the court’s shadow docket. It takes four votes to grant such review. But it takes five votes to prevail. The swing vote would almost certainly belong to Justice Amy Coney Barrett. In a second order in the Pennsylvania case, the court provisionally turned down a similar application on technical grounds without noted dissent. The North Carolina Supreme Court had rejected a map drawn by Republican lawmakers that effectively gave their party at least 10 of the state’s 14 House seats, notwithstanding that voters statewide are roughly equally divided between the two parties. A three-judge panel of the state Superior Court in Raleigh instead adopted a new map drawn by a nonpartisan panel of redistricting experts that appeared to split North Carolina’s congressional districts roughly equally between Republicans and Democrats. It gave each party six relatively safe House seats and made the other two competitive. After the state Supreme Court refused to block that ruling, Republican state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in. In the Pennsylvania case, the state Supreme Court adopted a map that appears to give Republicans nine fairly safe seats and Democrats eight, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. Each party currently holds nine House seats, but Pennsylvania will lose a seat next year because of reapportionment after the 2020 census. Voters and a Republican candidate for the House sued state officials in federal court to challenge the new map. When they did not receive immediate relief, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Both emergency applications relied on the Elections Clause of the Constitution, which says “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” That meant, the challengers argued, that the state legislature has sole responsibility for drawing congressional districts and that state courts have no role to play. “The question presented here,” North Carolina Republicans wrote in their application, “goes to the very core of this nation’s democratic republic: what entity has the constitutional authority to set the rules of the road for federal elections.” The North Carolina Supreme Court rejected that argument, sometimes called the independent state legislature doctrine, saying it was “repugnant to the sovereignty of states, the authority of state constitutions and the independence of state courts, and would produce absurd and dangerous consequences.” But four justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have suggested that they are sympathetic to the doctrine. Three opinions issued in October 2020 seemed to endorse it. “The provisions of the federal Constitution conferring on state legislatures, not state courts, the authority to make rules governing federal elections would be meaningless if a state court could override the rules adopted by the legislature simply by claiming that a state constitutional provision gave the courts the authority to make whatever rules it thought appropriate for the conduct of a fair election,” Alito, joined by Gorsuch and Thomas, wrote in a statement when the court refused to fast-track review of whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court could alter deadlines for mail ballots set by the legislature. Along the same lines, Gorsuch, joined by Kavanaugh, wrote in a concurring opinion that “the Constitution provides that state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules.” Kavanaugh, in another concurring opinion, wrote that “under the U.S. Constitution, the state courts do not have a blank check to rewrite state election laws for federal elections.” Several Supreme Court decisions cut in the opposite direction. In 2019, for instance, when the Supreme Court closed the doors of federal courts to claims of partisan gerrymandering in Rucho v. Common Cause, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the five most conservative members of the court, said state courts could continue to hear such cases — including in the context of congressional redistricting. “Our conclusion does not condone excessive partisan gerrymandering,” he wrote. “Nor does our conclusion condemn complaints about districting to echo into a void. The states, for example, are actively addressing the issue on a number of fronts.” He gave an example: “In 2015, the Supreme Court of Florida struck down that state’s congressional districting plan as a violation of the Fair Districts Amendment to the Florida Constitution,” adding that “provisions in state statutes and state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply.” In 2015, in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, the court ruled that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing congressional district lines less partisan by creating an independent redistricting commission notwithstanding the Elections Clause. “Nothing in that clause instructs, nor has this court ever held, that a state legislature may prescribe regulations on the time, place and manner of holding federal elections in defiance of provisions of the state’s constitution,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020, wrote in the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision.

US Supreme Court allows court-imposed voting maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania

At least four monkeys escaped after a truck carrying 100 primates to a laboratory crashed at Pennsylvania highway.

According to police, the trailer crashed with a dump truck on Friday afternoon while en route to a laboratory in Florida.

Police said on Twitter that four monkeys had "fled the crash scene into the surrounding area." Three were later captured, but one was still on the loose on Saturday morning.

The local WNEP news outlet said a police helicopter with thermal cameras was used to track down the cynomolgus monkeys, while officers on the ground used powerful flashlights.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
MONKEYS ON THE LOOSE: Right now Pennsylvania State Police and Game Wardens are searching the woods for 4 lab monkeys that escaped from a truck after a crash off of I-80 near the Danville exit. Search has focused on one tree for the last 15 minutes. <a href="https://twitter.com/WNEP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@WNEP</a> <a href="https://t.co/986nwBn4xA">pic.twitter.com/986nwBn4xA</a>
— Marshall Keely (@MKeelyNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/MKeelyNews/status/1484683275578875904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Pennsylvania State Police released an image of one primate perched in a tree off Route 54 during the freezing cold night.
<img alt="Photo released by Pennsylvania State Police shows one of the escaped monkeys" data-caption="&lt;em&gt;Photo released by Pennsylvania State Police shows one of the escaped monkeys&lt;/em&gt;" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="5c121381-7782-427b-ac7b-993aba412ca5" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/monkeys.jpg" />
It was unclear if any people or animals were injured in the crash.

"Crash Update: There is still one monkey unaccounted for, but we are asking that no one attempt to look for or capture the animal," police troopers said on Twitter on Saturday morning.

Cynomolgus monkeys —also known as long-tailed macaques —can cost up to $10,000 each and have been in demand for coronavirus vaccine research, according to the New York Times. They can live for 30 years in captivity

(With inputs from agencies)

At least four monkeys escaped after a truck carrying 100 primates to a laboratory crashed at Pennsylvania highway. According to police, the trailer crashed with a dump truck on Friday afternoon while en route to a laboratory in Florida.

At least four monkeys escaped after a truck carrying 100 primates to a laboratory crashed at Pennsylvania highway. According to police, the trailer crashed with a dump truck on Friday afternoon while en route to a laboratory in Florida. Police said on Twitter that four monkeys had "fled the crash scene into the surrounding area." Three were later captured, but one was still on the loose on Saturday morning. The local WNEP news outlet said a police helicopter with thermal cameras was used to track down the cynomolgus monkeys, while officers on the ground used powerful flashlights. MONKEYS ON THE LOOSE: Right now Pennsylvania State Police and Game Wardens are searching the woods for 4 lab monkeys that escaped from a truck after a crash off of I-80 near the Danville exit. Search has focused on one tree for the last 15 minutes. @WNEP pic.twitter.com/986nwBn4xA — Marshall Keely (@MKeelyNews) January 22, 2022 × Pennsylvania State Police released an image of one primate perched in a tree off Route 54 during the freezing cold night. It was unclear if any people or animals were injured in the crash. "Crash Update: There is still one monkey unaccounted for, but we are asking that no one attempt to look for or capture the animal," police troopers said on Twitter on Saturday morning. Cynomolgus monkeys —also known as long-tailed macaques —can cost up to $10,000 each and have been in demand for coronavirus vaccine research, according to the New York Times. They can live for 30 years in captivity (With inputs from agencies)

Monkeys on the loose: Truck carrying 100 primates crashes in US, 3 escape

An elected county prosecutor in Pennsylvania who was charged Wednesday with rape in connection with an attack on a woman in her home left the residence only after she promised not to call the police, authorities said.

The Pennsylvania State Police said the Somerset County district attorney, Jeffrey L. Thomas, was charged with rape, indecent and simple assault, strangulation and criminal trespass in connection with the Sept. 18 attack in Windber, a borough that is about two hours east of Pittsburgh.

Thomas, 36, a Republican, was elected district attorney in 2019. His lawyer, Ryan Tutera, and a woman who answered the phone at the district attorney’s office Friday declined to comment on whether Thomas would step down.

A State Police report said Thomas used Snapchat to message the woman, who was not identified, and told her that he would be at her home in a few minutes. She responded that he was not welcome in her home and he entered “by subterfuge,” carrying several cans of beer, the report said.

He handed her an opened can of beer, and when he did not leave as she told him to, she slapped him, the police report said. Thomas struck her face, causing her nose to bleed. He then pulled down her sports bra and choked her before biting her breasts and raping her, the report said.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-gunman-in-deadly-mass-shooting-at-kroger-in-tennessee-identified-as-29-year-old-store-vendor-415830">Also read |&nbsp;US: Gunman in deadly mass shooting at Kroger in Tennessee, identified as 29-year-old store vendor</a>

He grabbed the woman by her neck and hair and asked whether she was going to call the police, the report said. He eventually left only after she said she would not call the police, according to the report.

The police said that Thomas had known the woman for years “in a professional capacity,” and that he had repeatedly contacted her “to initiate a sexual relationship,” which she declined. Thomas had arrived at her house on a previous occasion and walked in uninvited and would also “routinely drive around her residence,” the police report said.

Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, said in a statement that the charges against Thomas were “deeply disturbing,” adding that “today is a reminder that no one is above the law.”

He also commended the woman for being brave enough to come forward. “That is never an easy thing to do, especially when your abuser is a powerful elected official,” he said.

The court proceedings may be unusual as the plaintiff, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was set to be represented by the Somerset County district attorney’s office, which Thomas led.

Tutera said Friday that all of the county’s magistrate judges would recuse themselves because of their previous work with Thomas’ office, and that the state might appoint a judge. Thomas had a preliminary hearing scheduled for Sept. 29, but Tutera said it would very likely be postponed.

Tutera said the woman drank beer and smoked marijuana with Thomas in her home, adding, “I think that there’s more to this story than meets the eye.” Thomas was released from jail Thursday morning after posting $5,000 bail, Tutera said.

In October 2020, Thomas was cited in Cambria County, which is north of Somerset County, for disorderly conduct and harassment, WJAC-TV reported.

He used obscene language at a pizza restaurant and later threatened to “engage in a physical altercation” at a gymnastics gym, the television station reported. The status of those citations was not immediately available Friday.

“Just because I am an elected official, I’m not supposed to get upset that my 5-year-old daughter’s birthday party gets screwed up,” he told the station in response to the citations. “That’s ridiculous.”

This is the second time this year that a Pennsylvania district attorney has been accused of sexual assault. In February, Chad M. Salsman, who was the district attorney in Bradford County, was accused of sexually assaulting clients from his private practice before he was elected district attorney in 2019. He pleaded guilty to some of the charges and resigned in May of this year, and was sentenced in July to 18 months to five years in prison.

An elected county prosecutor in Pennsylvania who was charged Wednesday with rape in connection with an attack on a woman in her home left the residence only after she promised not to call the police, authorities said.

An elected county prosecutor in Pennsylvania who was charged Wednesday with rape in connection with an attack on a woman in her home left the residence only after she promised not to call the police, authorities said. The Pennsylvania State Police said the Somerset County district attorney, Jeffrey L. Thomas, was charged with rape, indecent and simple assault, strangulation and criminal trespass in connection with the Sept. 18 attack in Windber, a borough that is about two hours east of Pittsburgh. Thomas, 36, a Republican, was elected district attorney in 2019. His lawyer, Ryan Tutera, and a woman who answered the phone at the district attorney’s office Friday declined to comment on whether Thomas would step down. A State Police report said Thomas used Snapchat to message the woman, who was not identified, and told her that he would be at her home in a few minutes. She responded that he was not welcome in her home and he entered “by subterfuge,” carrying several cans of beer, the report said. He handed her an opened can of beer, and when he did not leave as she told him to, she slapped him, the police report said. Thomas struck her face, causing her nose to bleed. He then pulled down her sports bra and choked her before biting her breasts and raping her, the report said. Also read | US: Gunman in deadly mass shooting at Kroger in Tennessee, identified as 29-year-old store vendor He grabbed the woman by her neck and hair and asked whether she was going to call the police, the report said. He eventually left only after she said she would not call the police, according to the report. The police said that Thomas had known the woman for years “in a professional capacity,” and that he had repeatedly contacted her “to initiate a sexual relationship,” which she declined. Thomas had arrived at her house on a previous occasion and walked in uninvited and would also “routinely drive around her residence,” the police report said. Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, said in a statement that the charges against Thomas were “deeply disturbing,” adding that “today is a reminder that no one is above the law.” He also commended the woman for being brave enough to come forward. “That is never an easy thing to do, especially when your abuser is a powerful elected official,” he said. The court proceedings may be unusual as the plaintiff, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was set to be represented by the Somerset County district attorney’s office, which Thomas led. Tutera said Friday that all of the county’s magistrate judges would recuse themselves because of their previous work with Thomas’ office, and that the state might appoint a judge. Thomas had a preliminary hearing scheduled for Sept. 29, but Tutera said it would very likely be postponed. Tutera said the woman drank beer and smoked marijuana with Thomas in her home, adding, “I think that there’s more to this story than meets the eye.” Thomas was released from jail Thursday morning after posting $5,000 bail, Tutera said. In October 2020, Thomas was cited in Cambria County, which is north of Somerset County, for disorderly conduct and harassment, WJAC-TV reported. He used obscene language at a pizza restaurant and later threatened to “engage in a physical altercation” at a gymnastics gym, the television station reported. The status of those citations was not immediately available Friday. “Just because I am an elected official, I’m not supposed to get upset that my 5-year-old daughter’s birthday party gets screwed up,” he told the station in response to the citations. “That’s ridiculous.” This is the second time this year that a Pennsylvania district attorney has been accused of sexual assault. In February, Chad M. Salsman, who was the district attorney in Bradford County, was accused of sexually assaulting clients from his private practice before he was elected district attorney in 2019. He pleaded guilty to some of the charges and resigned in May of this year, and was sentenced in July to 18 months to five years in prison.

Pennsylvania prosecutor charged in rape at woman’s home, police say

At least five people have been killed after two separate tornadoes touched down in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Thursday. The tornadoes have brought rampant damage in Pennsylvania.

Two separate tornadoes touch down in Bucks County, Pennsylvania

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed.

Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who &lt;em&gt;she &lt;/em&gt;was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline.

“It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?”

Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars.

This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know&lt;em&gt; her&lt;/em&gt; because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand.

Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show.

That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either.

That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.”

She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being&lt;em&gt; their&lt;/em&gt; movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.”

STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West.

“Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’”

Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too.

“Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.”

And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film.

But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.”

In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’”

“Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves.

In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California.

But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply &lt;em&gt;being&lt;/em&gt;. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.”

That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.”

Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight.

But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.”

FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend?

“I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me.

What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door.

“That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’”

She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.”

That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests.

“I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.”

To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.”

We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.”

As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome.

She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!”

It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea.

“Well, at what point?” she said. “&lt;em&gt;Is&lt;/em&gt; it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed. Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who she was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline. “It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?” Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars. This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know her because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand. Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show. That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either. That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.” She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being their movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.” STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West. “Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’” Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too. “Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.” And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film. But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.” In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’” “Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves. In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California. But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply being. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.” That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.” Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight. But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.” FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend? “I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me. What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door. “That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’” She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.” That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests. “I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.” To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.” We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.” As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome. She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!” It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea. “Well, at what point?” she said. “Is it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

What Frances McDormand would (and wouldn’t) give to 'Nomadland'

US Supreme Court gave a blow to Republicans seeking to throw out 2.5 milliion mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and undo Joe Biden's election victory. The court refused to block the state from formalising Joe Biden's victory there.

The lawsuit was brought-in by US congressman Mike Kelly, a Trump ally and other Pennsylvania Republicans. They said that state's 2019 expansion of mail-in voting was illegal under state law.

Trump had won the state in 2016 presidential elections but this time Biden clinched the state by 80,000 votes.

The Republican plaintiffs argued that the universal, "no-excuse" mail-in ballot program passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature in 2019, enabling voters to cast ballots by mail for any reason, violated the state`s constitution.

Trump`s campaign and his allies have lost in a stream of lawsuits in key states won by Biden, also including Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and others. Judges have rejected sweeping assertions of voting irregularities.

Biden has amassed 306 electoral votes - exceeding the necessary 270 - compared to 232 for Trump in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the election`s outcome, while also winning the national popular vote by more than 7 million votes.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/hopeful-ill-remain-president-says-trump-on-same-day-of-legal-defeat-in-us-supreme-court-348441">Hopeful I'll remain president, says Trump on same day of legal defeat in US Supreme Court</a>

However, Trump is yet to concede and instead chosen to make baseless allegations about election fraud and has not provided any evidence.

"This election is over. We must continue to stop this circus of `lawsuits` and move forward," Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter.

(With Reuters inputs)

US Supreme Court gave a blow to Republicans seeking to throw out 2.5 milliion mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and undo Joe Biden's election victory. The court refused to block the state from formalising Joe Biden's victory there.

US Supreme Court gave a blow to Republicans seeking to throw out 2.5 milliion mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and undo Joe Biden's election victory. The court refused to block the state from formalising Joe Biden's victory there. The lawsuit was brought-in by US congressman Mike Kelly, a Trump ally and other Pennsylvania Republicans. They said that state's 2019 expansion of mail-in voting was illegal under state law. Trump had won the state in 2016 presidential elections but this time Biden clinched the state by 80,000 votes. The Republican plaintiffs argued that the universal, "no-excuse" mail-in ballot program passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature in 2019, enabling voters to cast ballots by mail for any reason, violated the state`s constitution. Trump`s campaign and his allies have lost in a stream of lawsuits in key states won by Biden, also including Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and others. Judges have rejected sweeping assertions of voting irregularities. Biden has amassed 306 electoral votes - exceeding the necessary 270 - compared to 232 for Trump in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the election`s outcome, while also winning the national popular vote by more than 7 million votes. Also Read | Hopeful I'll remain president, says Trump on same day of legal defeat in US Supreme Court However, Trump is yet to concede and instead chosen to make baseless allegations about election fraud and has not provided any evidence. "This election is over. We must continue to stop this circus of `lawsuits` and move forward," Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter. (With Reuters inputs)

US Supreme Court throws out Trump's claim of election fraud in Pennsylvania

The US Supreme Court denied a last-minute attempt by President Donald Trump’s allies to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania, a blow to the president’s continuing efforts to reverse his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Scotus denies Trump allies' attempt to overturn results

Allies of President Donald Trump sought an emergency order Thursday from the US Supreme Court blocking the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, a key state won by President-elect Joe Biden.

The move follows the Pennsylvania state supreme court's rejection Saturday of a suit challenging expanded mail-in voting in the key northeastern state.

In the motion filed Thursday the top US court is not asked to rule on the merits of the case at this point.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/strong-support-from-president-trump-saudi-arabia-says-final-agreement-with-qatar-within-reach-347759">'Strong support from President Trump': Saudi Arabia says final agreement with Qatar 'within reach'</a>

Rather, the plaintiffs ask the court for an injunction to halt any remaining steps in the election certification, which was actually done last week, so the plaintiffs can develop their arguments. They include Mike Kelly, a Republican member of the House of Representatives.

The court is expected to respond quickly in writing and is not obliged to explain whatever ruling it makes.

Trump is still refusing to concede defeat in the November 3 election, alleging without providing evidence that there was widespread fraud in both voting and vote counting and that the election was stolen from him.

The Trump campaign and Trump allies have filed a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states that he lost, seeking to overturn the results. In some 20-odd cases, however, the courts have rejected these suits.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/with-us-senate-majority-in-the-pot-parties-bring-out-big-guns-for-georgia-elections-347720">With US Senate majority in the pot, parties bring out big guns for Georgia elections</a>

On Tuesday Attorney General Bill Barr, a close ally of the president, broke with Trump and said there was no evidence of significant fraud to invalidate Biden's win.

Trump appointed three conservatives to the nine-member court during his presidency and said right after the November election he was prepared to go all the way to that tribunal to defend what he called his re-election victory.

In the 2000 presidential election, the high court halted a recount in Florida while George W. Bush held a 537-vote lead over Al Gore, handing Bush the presidency.

This time is different: There is not just one but several states that Trump is disputing and the margins of victory for Biden there are much larger than Bush's was.

The Supreme Court is considered unlikely to risk its reputation by getting involved in the Pennsylvania suit, which would not change the overall outcome of the election anyway.

Allies of President Donald Trump sought an emergency order Thursday from the US Supreme Court blocking the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, a key state won by President-elect Joe Biden.

Allies of President Donald Trump sought an emergency order Thursday from the US Supreme Court blocking the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, a key state won by President-elect Joe Biden. The move follows the Pennsylvania state supreme court's rejection Saturday of a suit challenging expanded mail-in voting in the key northeastern state. In the motion filed Thursday the top US court is not asked to rule on the merits of the case at this point. Also read| 'Strong support from President Trump': Saudi Arabia says final agreement with Qatar 'within reach' Rather, the plaintiffs ask the court for an injunction to halt any remaining steps in the election certification, which was actually done last week, so the plaintiffs can develop their arguments. They include Mike Kelly, a Republican member of the House of Representatives. The court is expected to respond quickly in writing and is not obliged to explain whatever ruling it makes. Trump is still refusing to concede defeat in the November 3 election, alleging without providing evidence that there was widespread fraud in both voting and vote counting and that the election was stolen from him. The Trump campaign and Trump allies have filed a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states that he lost, seeking to overturn the results. In some 20-odd cases, however, the courts have rejected these suits. Also read| With US Senate majority in the pot, parties bring out big guns for Georgia elections On Tuesday Attorney General Bill Barr, a close ally of the president, broke with Trump and said there was no evidence of significant fraud to invalidate Biden's win. Trump appointed three conservatives to the nine-member court during his presidency and said right after the November election he was prepared to go all the way to that tribunal to defend what he called his re-election victory. In the 2000 presidential election, the high court halted a recount in Florida while George W. Bush held a 537-vote lead over Al Gore, handing Bush the presidency. This time is different: There is not just one but several states that Trump is disputing and the margins of victory for Biden there are much larger than Bush's was. The Supreme Court is considered unlikely to risk its reputation by getting involved in the Pennsylvania suit, which would not change the overall outcome of the election anyway.

Donald Trump allies take Pennsylvania vote complaint to US Supreme Court

Allies of US President Donald Trump have sought an emergency order from the US Supreme Court blocking the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, a key state won by President-elect Joe Biden.

The move follows the Pennsylvania state supreme court's rejection of a suit challenging expanded mail-in voting in the key northeastern state.

In the motion filed Thursday the top US court is not asked to rule on the merits of the case at this point.

Rather, the plaintiffs ask the court for an injunction to halt any remaining steps in the election certification, which was actually done last week, so the plaintiffs can develop their arguments. They include Mike Kelly, a Republican member of the House of Representatives.

The court is expected to respond quickly in writing and is not obliged to explain whatever ruling it makes.

Trump is still refusing to concede defeat in the November 3 election, alleging without providing evidence that there was widespread fraud in both voting and vote counting, and that the election was stolen from him.

The Trump campaign and Trump allies have filed a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states that he lost, seeking to overturn the results. In some 20-odd cases, however, the courts have rejected these suits.

On Tuesday Attorney General Bill Barr, a close ally of the president, broke with Trump and said there was no evidence of significant fraud to invalidate Biden's win.

Trump appointed three conservatives to the nine-member court during his presidency and said right after the November election he was prepared to go all the way to that tribunal to defend what he called his re-election victory.

The Supreme Court is considered unlikely to risk its reputation by getting involved in the Pennsylvania suit, which would not change the overall outcome of the election anyway.

Allies of US President Donald Trump have sought an emergency order from the US Supreme Court blocking the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, a key state won by President-elect Joe Biden.

Allies of US President Donald Trump have sought an emergency order from the US Supreme Court blocking the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, a key state won by President-elect Joe Biden. The move follows the Pennsylvania state supreme court's rejection of a suit challenging expanded mail-in voting in the key northeastern state. In the motion filed Thursday the top US court is not asked to rule on the merits of the case at this point. Rather, the plaintiffs ask the court for an injunction to halt any remaining steps in the election certification, which was actually done last week, so the plaintiffs can develop their arguments. They include Mike Kelly, a Republican member of the House of Representatives. The court is expected to respond quickly in writing and is not obliged to explain whatever ruling it makes. Trump is still refusing to concede defeat in the November 3 election, alleging without providing evidence that there was widespread fraud in both voting and vote counting, and that the election was stolen from him. The Trump campaign and Trump allies have filed a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states that he lost, seeking to overturn the results. In some 20-odd cases, however, the courts have rejected these suits. On Tuesday Attorney General Bill Barr, a close ally of the president, broke with Trump and said there was no evidence of significant fraud to invalidate Biden's win. Trump appointed three conservatives to the nine-member court during his presidency and said right after the November election he was prepared to go all the way to that tribunal to defend what he called his re-election victory. The Supreme Court is considered unlikely to risk its reputation by getting involved in the Pennsylvania suit, which would not change the overall outcome of the election anyway.

Trump allies take Pennsylvania vote complaint to US Supreme Court

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an attempt by US President Donald Trump's campaign to block President-elect Joe Biden from being declared the winner of Pennsylvania.

The state&nbsp;certified Biden as its winner this week. Under the law, the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all of the state's 20 electoral votes.

Trump, a Republican, has refused to concede to his Democratic rival and continues to claim, without evidence, widespread voter fraud.

The Trump campaign and its supporters have tried and failed to convince judges of election irregularities in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, all critical to Biden's victory.

"Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections," said the appeals court opinion to this end.

"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so," wrote Stephanos Bibas on behalf of a three-judge panel.

"Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here," wrote Bibas, who was nominated by Trump.

Soon after Friday's ruling, Trump posted a video from Newsmax on Twitter about alleged voter fraud in Nevada.

The Trump campaign filed the Pennsylvania case earlier this month, saying that county election officials had treated mail-in ballots inconsistently and asking US District Judge Matthew Brann to halt certification of the results.

Brann dismissed the case on November 21, saying the case was based on "strained legal arguments" and "speculative accusations."

The Trump campaign said it appealed on the “narrow” question of whether Brann improperly refused to let it amend the lawsuit a second time.

The appeals court said many of the claims by Trump campaign are matters of Pennsylvania law but noted the campaign already lost on those issues in state court.

The other judges on the panel, Brooks Smith and Michael Chagares, were nominated by George W Bush, a Republican.

Meanwhile, Trump said on Thursday he would leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Biden when it meets on Dec. 14, the closest he has come to conceding the election.

On Monday, Trump's administration cleared the way Biden to transition to the White House, giving him access to briefings and funding even as Trump vowed to continue fighting the election results.

Biden won the election 306-232 in electoral votes, including Pennsylvania's 20. Even if Trump overturned the outcome in Pennsylvania, he would still need to reverse the result in at least two other states to remain as president.

States as states have until December 8 to resolve election disputes. 
&nbsp;

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an attempt by US President Donald Trump's campaign to block President-elect Joe Biden from being declared the winner of Pennsylvania.

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an attempt by US President Donald Trump's campaign to block President-elect Joe Biden from being declared the winner of Pennsylvania. The state certified Biden as its winner this week. Under the law, the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all of the state's 20 electoral votes. Trump, a Republican, has refused to concede to his Democratic rival and continues to claim, without evidence, widespread voter fraud. The Trump campaign and its supporters have tried and failed to convince judges of election irregularities in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, all critical to Biden's victory. "Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections," said the appeals court opinion to this end. "Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so," wrote Stephanos Bibas on behalf of a three-judge panel. "Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here," wrote Bibas, who was nominated by Trump. Soon after Friday's ruling, Trump posted a video from Newsmax on Twitter about alleged voter fraud in Nevada. The Trump campaign filed the Pennsylvania case earlier this month, saying that county election officials had treated mail-in ballots inconsistently and asking US District Judge Matthew Brann to halt certification of the results. Brann dismissed the case on November 21, saying the case was based on "strained legal arguments" and "speculative accusations." The Trump campaign said it appealed on the “narrow” question of whether Brann improperly refused to let it amend the lawsuit a second time. The appeals court said many of the claims by Trump campaign are matters of Pennsylvania law but noted the campaign already lost on those issues in state court. The other judges on the panel, Brooks Smith and Michael Chagares, were nominated by George W Bush, a Republican. Meanwhile, Trump said on Thursday he would leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Biden when it meets on Dec. 14, the closest he has come to conceding the election. On Monday, Trump's administration cleared the way Biden to transition to the White House, giving him access to briefings and funding even as Trump vowed to continue fighting the election results. Biden won the election 306-232 in electoral votes, including Pennsylvania's 20. Even if Trump overturned the outcome in Pennsylvania, he would still need to reverse the result in at least two other states to remain as president. States as states have until December 8 to resolve election disputes.

US court denies Trump's Pennsylvania election challenge

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