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WASHINGTON – Congress on Thursday approved an extension of unemployment benefits for almost 2 million people.
The White House announced that President Obama will sign the bill today.
The measure cleared the House 403-12 Thursday, a day after it won unanimous Senate support. It extends benefits for 14 weeks for all those who have exhausted their federal aid or will do so by the end of the year. Those living in states where the unemployment rate is at 8.5 percent or higher get an additional six weeks.
It is the fourth extension Congress has passed in the past 18 months.
A packed Philadelphia commuter train struck and killed a rail worker Thursday morning, disrupting service for three hours and stranding hundreds of riders on a system already crippled by a transit strike.
The train was inbound from the city’s northern suburbs when it hit the worker around 8:35 a.m., Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority spokesman Richard Maloney said.
A 34-year-old rail inspector and a flagman were walking the northbound tracks when the inspector was hit from behind by a southbound train, Maloney said. The train was running on different tracks than normal because of equipment problems with another train.
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik admitted in court Thursday that he lied to the White House while being considered for chief of Homeland Security.
Kerik also pleaded guilty to lying on tax returns, a loan application and a questionnaire he filled out when he was seeking a separate U.S. government position.
Under his plea bargain, which short-circuited as many as three federal trials, he was not required to plead guilty to the main corruption charges against him. Those charges will be dismissed.
Prosecutors suggested the appropriate sentence would be between 27 and 33 months in prison.
The first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial after the raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas last year was convicted Thursday of sexual assault of a child.
Jurors took a little more than two hours to convict Raymond Jessop, 38, of sexually assaulting a teen with whom he had a so-called “spiritual marriage.”
The girl, now 21, was previously in a “spiritual marriage” with Jessop’s brother before being “reassigned” to Jessop when she was 15, seized documents say.
Jessop faces up to 20 years in prison.
