CBS News
Recount triggered in Pennsylvania Senate race as McCormick heads to D.C., Casey declines to concede
Sen. Bob Casey is not giving up on retaining his U.S. Senate seat. The three-term Democrat is currently locked in a tight race with Dave McCormick, trailing the Republican by just over 29,000 votes as of 4 p.m. Wednesday. CBS News has not issued a projection in the race.
Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced Wednesday afternoon that unofficial results in the race have triggered a statewide recount.
That’s because vote totals for McCormick and Casey are within a 0.5% margin, which triggers a statewide recount under state law.
According to the Department of State, Casey received 48.5% of the vote with 3,350,972 votes and McCormick had 48.93% with 3,380,310.
Counties must begin the recount by Nov. 20, the announcement says. The recount will cost about $1 million in taxpayer funds, the Department of State says.
Casey has not made a public appearance since his election night watch party in Scranton, but he posted a video on his social media accounts Tuesday.
“The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania, and that process will play out,” he said in the video on X.
Meanwhile, McCormick is moving forward. The businessman declared victory during a speech in Pittsburgh Friday, and he has spent this week in Washington going through the Senate orientation process.
“The people have spoken. There’s a clear, clear victory,” McCormick said last week.
CBS News Philadelphia reached out to both campaigns Wednesday, but neither made the candidates available to speak.
Casey’s campaign has said it’s been waiting for outstanding votes from around the state, from mail-in ballots to overseas and military votes and provisional ballots. In Philadelphia, the state’s largest county and one where Casey has garnered more than 78% of the vote, commissioners say the number of votes left out there is running thin.
“We had about 20,000 provisional ballots to start with. We’ve already counted 11,000 of those,” city commissioner Seth Bluestein said Wednesday.
Bluestein told CBS News Philadelphia the election board wrapped up voting on outstanding mail-in votes Wednesday. He says a few thousand could not be counted for various reasons, mostly a lack of a signature or secrecy envelope.
As for the remaining provisional ballots, Bluestein said the board will take those up on Friday. But he warned, “most of those will probably end up not getting counted.”
According to a statement from the Pennsylvania Department of State, Casey’s campaign did not waive an automatic recount by noon on Wednesday.
The Department of Stats says there are about 60,366 uncounted provisional ballots and 20,155 uncounted mail-in and absentee ballots. That includes ballots for which officials still need to determine eligibility or validity.
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Human skulls linked to missing woman and other possible victims found in New Mexico
Authorities in New Mexico say they discovered at least 10 human skulls in and around a property near the southeastern border, which could include the remains of a woman who’s been missing since 2019.
Investigators found the remains while executing a search warrant for Cecil Villanueva, a man flagged to law enforcement by a local resident in the city of Jal. The resident said he offered Villanueva a ride in his car and proceeded to have “an unsettling encounter” with him, the Lea County Sheriff’s Office said.
The resident, who authorities haven’t named, reported the interaction on Nov. 5. He said Villanueva was carrying two bags and “made alarming statements” as he “discarded objects from the vehicle, some of which appeared to be human bones,” the sheriff’s office said. Investigators uncovered bone fragments during their subsequent search of the area, and a pathologist later confirmed they were in fact human bones. Forensic experts went on to determine the findings included portions of a human skull and jawbone, according to the sheriff.
There is evidence of the remains of between 10 and 20 human skulls on a property in Jal where Villanueva had been staying, which was “associated with rumors of human remains,” the sheriff said. A team of investigators and a forensic anthropologist turned over the remains to the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque. The medical investigator will analyze and potentially identify them.
Law enforcement has so far released few details about the case, but they said it “is being closely tied” to the disappearance of a woman named Angela McManes, who went missing in 2019 and lived near the property now under investigation.
“Authorities are working diligently to determine the connection between the remains and McManes, as well as other possible victims,” the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities have not said whether Villanueva has been arrested in this case. The man apparently claims he purchased the skulls online, CBS News affiliate KOSA reported Tuesday. At the time, Lea County Undersheriff Michael Walker told the station authorities were still working to determine whether the skulls they found were real human skulls.
Anyone with information related to the investigation has been asked to contact the Lea County Sheriff’s Office or the county’s local Crime Stoppers line. CBS News reached out to the sheriff’s office for more information but did not immediately hear back.
CBS News
Olympic skiing gold medalist Lindsey Vonn is coming out of retirement at age 40
Lindsey Vonn is coming out of retirement to rejoin the U.S. Ski Team, she announced Thursday, intending to race again at age 40 — and six years after her last Olympics.
Vonn is a three-time Olympic medalist, including a downhill gold and super-G bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Games, and a bronze in the downhill at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. She is also a four-time overall World Cup champion and owns eight world championships medals.
Her 82 World Cup race victories stood as the record for a woman until that total was eclipsed in January 2023 by American Mikaela Shiffrin, who is still active and is now up to 97 wins — more than any Alpine ski racer in the history of the sport.
Before eclipsing Vonn’s total, Shiffrin said: “I don’t know if I could fill Lindsey’s shoes, the way that she has worn them.”
Vonn’s last competition came in February 2019, after she dealt with a long series of injuries throughout her career, including a spectacular crash in at the Pyeongchang Games that left her with torn ligaments and a fractured tibia. In 2017, she detailed her injuries in a “60 Minutes” interview: Two ACL tears, an MCL tear, an injury to her meniscus, several broken bones, including her wrist and multiple fingers. Just this April, years after leaving the World Cup circuit, she had surgery for a partial knee replacement.
Vonn has been training in recent months, U.S. Ski & Snowboard said Thursday.
“Getting back to skiing without pain has been an incredible journey,” Vonn said, adding that she wants to “continue to share my knowledge of the sport with these incredible women” on the American team.
U.S. Ski & Snowboard president and CEO Sophie Goldschmidt said Vonn’s “dedication and passion towards Alpine skiing is inspiring, and we’re excited to have her back on snow and see where she can go from here.”
Vonn is back with the team effective immediately, but it is not yet known which particular races she will be aiming to enter.
The next Winter Olympics are in Italy in February 2026.