October 26, 2020 4:19 am
Massachusetts election officials say a fire was set in a Boston ballot drop box holding more than 120 ballots in what appears to have been a “deliberate attack.” The FBI said it’s investigating. Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s office said the fire that was set around 4 a.m. in a ballot drop box outside the Boston Public Library downtown. Boston Police said an arson investigation is underway and released surveillance images of a person near the ballot box at that time. Officials said there were 122 ballots inside the box when it was emptied Sunday morning and 87 of them were still legible and able to be processed.
October 26, 2020 4:17 am
MANILA, Philippines (AP) – A fast-moving typhoon has forced thousands of villagers to flee to safety in provinces south of the Philippine capital. It flooded rural villages, ripped off roofs, toppled trees and electric posts and knock off power in several towns. There were no immediate reports of casualties from Typhoon Molave but authorities reported at least one person was missing and seven others were rescued after their yacht sank. The typhoon has sustained winds of 77 miles and is expected to start blowing out of the country into the South China Sea.
October 26, 2020 4:17 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A deeply torn Senate is set to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Republicans are overpowering unified Democratic opposition to vote Monday on President Donald Trump’s nominee a week before Election Day. Barrett’s confirmation was hardly in doubt as Senate Republicans seized the opportunity to install a third Trump justice, securing a conservative court majority for the foreseeable future. With no real power to stop the vote, Democrats argue the winner of the Nov. 3 election should choose the nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
October 26, 2020 4:15 am
The number of people casting an early ballot in the presidential election now surpasses those who voted early during all of 2016. That’s more than 58 million people voting with eight days to go before Election Day. Democrats have been dominating early voting, but Republicans are slowly narrowing the gap. That’s because in-person early voting has kicked off in a number of states and President Donald Trump has convinced many of his supporters they should not vote with mail ballots. One out of every 4 of the voters is either new or infrequent, a sign of a potential record-setting turnout.
October 26, 2020 4:11 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s Republican Party is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to speedily take up its case to block counties in the presidential battleground state from counting mailed-in ballots received up to three days after the Nov. 3 election. The Republican Party’s late Friday filing came four days after the justices divided 4-4 on putting a hold on the extension. The Republican Party’s request could arrive before the U.S. Supreme Court with a new, ninth justice. President Donald Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate on Monday. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are locked in a battle to win Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes.
October 26, 2020 4:10 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has wrapped up the first of three campaign rallies in Pennsylvania, where he told supporters that he wanted to discuss an issue of “existential importance” as he focuses on former Vice President Joe Biden’s policies on energy. Pennsylvania is the second leading producer of natural gas in the country behind Texas. Trump claims that Biden would “abolish the entire U.S. oil industry.” Trump says that means no fracking and no jobs for Pennsylvania families. He is seizing on Biden’s comments in last week’s debate that he would “transition away from the oil industry.” But Biden sought to clarify later that he was talking about ending federal subsidies for oil companies.
October 25, 2020 7:54 am
Jerry Jeff Walker, a Texas country singer and songwriter who wrote the pop song “Mr. Bojangles,” has died at age 78. Walker died Friday of cancer, family spokesman John T. Davis told The Associated Press. “He had battled throat cancer for many years, and some other health issues,” Davis said Saturday. Walker emerged from New York’s Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s and he was a founding member of the band Circus Maximus. He moved to Texas in the 1970s and in 1972 scored a hit with his version of the Guy Clark song “L.A. Freeway.” Walker and the Lost Gonzo Band in 1973 recorded an album live in Texas called “Viva Terlingua” that became a classic of the country-rock scene. Walker had since released more than 30 albums.
October 25, 2020 7:51 am
WAUKEGAN, Ill. (AP) — A Black woman who was shot and wounded inside a vehicle by a police officer who also fatally shot her 19-year-old boyfriend on Saturday told about 200 people gathered at an emotional rally in suburban Chicago that she’s fighting “to be strong” for her son. The protest in Waukegan, about 40 miles north of Chicago, was organized by Clyde McLemore, the founder of the Lake County chapter of Black Lives Matter. It took place less than a day after Police Chief Wayne Walles announced the firing of the officer who fatally shot Marcellis Stinnette, a Black man, and wounded Tafara Williams, 20. Walles added in a brief statement that the male officer had committed “multiple policy and procedure violations.” During the gathering, Clifftina Johnson, Williams’ mother, put a megaphone to her cellphone as Williams passionately spoke to the crowd from her hospital bed as another family member at the rally held her and Stinnette’s 7-month-old son.
October 25, 2020 7:49 am
BALTIMORE — A day after the U.S. set a daily record for new confirmed coronavirus infections, it came very close to doing it again. Data published by Johns Hopkins University shows that 83,718 new cases in the U.S. were reported Saturday, nearly matching the 83,757 infections reported Friday. Before that, the most cases reported in the United States on a single day had been 77,362 on July 16. Close to 8.6 million Americans have contracted the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and about 225,000 have died. Both statistics are the world’s highest. India has more than 7.8 million infections but in recent weeks its daily number have been declining. U.S. health officials have feared the surge of infections to come with colder weather and people spending more time indoors, especially as many flout guidelines to protect themselves and others such as mask-wearing and social distancing. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington currently forecasts that the country’s COVID-19 death toll could exceed 318,000 by Jan. 1.
October 25, 2020 7:47 am
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — President Donald Trump assured supporters packed shoulder to shoulder at weekend rallies that “we’re rounding the turn” on the coronavirus and mocked challenger Joe Biden for raising alarms about the pandemic, despite surging cases around the country and more positive infections at the White House. Trump’s remarks came Saturday, hours before the White House announced that a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence had tested positive for the virus. Pence has been in close contact with the adviser, the White House said, but still planned to keep traveling and holding rallies around the country. The revelation of another high-ranking administration official testing positive for the virus coupled with the administration’s decision to continue business as usual punctuated a day that marked the starkly different approaches that Trump and Biden are taking to campaigning in the age of the novel coronavirus. Pence’s office confirmed late Saturday that his chief of staff, Marc Short, had tested positive — the public announcement coming just as Trump was wrapping up a day of big rallies in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, three battleground states that will have enormous impact on deciding the Nov. 3 election.
