Pennsylvania agrees to settle gas drilling royalties lawsuit
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania reached a settlement in a lawsuit against natural gas driller Chesapeake Energy Corp. for its handling of royalty payments to property owners, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced Monday. Speaking in Tunkhannock, a northeastern Pennsylvania town in the heart of heavy Marcellus Shale natural gas production, Shapiro...
Stimulus check calculator tells you how much your 3rd payment will be
Curious how much — if anything — you will be getting if the third stimulus checks go out? Well, there are several online calculators set up to tell you just that. On Saturday, the U.S. Senate passed the $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. Now, it’s headed to the House for...
Drop a request in community prayer boxes in Ligonier, New Stanton
Pandemic or no pandemic, life can be tough. “There are always distraught people out there with no one to help them,” said Ron Ingelido, lead pastor of New Stanton Assembly of God. “The community has to know that we’re there in their time of need.” The church has established a...
Guilt, envy, distrust: Vaccine rollout breeds mixed emotions
NEW YORK — Before posting a selfie with her covid-19 vaccination card on Twitter, Aditi Juneja debated whether to include an explanation for why she was eligible for a shot. “The first draft of the tweet had an explanation,” says Juneja, a 30-year-old lawyer in New York City. After some...
Giant ship seen ‘suspended’ over the water off English coastVideo
A man walking on the coast near Falmouth, Cornwall in southwest England got quite a surprise last week when looking out to sea. He saw a large ship that appeared to be hovering in mid-air above the horizon. BBC News reported that David Morris took a photo of the ship,...
Couple seeks owner of wedding band found in Outer Banks
Someone out there had a horrible experience in the Outer Banks in 2019. And one northern Virginia couple is hoping to make it all better. While on their final day of vacation, Robert and Kathie Menuet were at The Point at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It was there — while...
With virus aid in sight, Democrats debate filibuster changes
WASHINGTON — With President Joe Biden on the verge of his first big legislative victory, a key moderate Democrat says he’s open to changing Senate rules that could allow for more party-line votes to push through other parts of the White House’s agenda such as voting rights. West Virginia Sen....
Coroner: Pa. worker killed in fall into lead refining furnace
LYONS — Authorities say a Pennsylvania worker died after falling into a lead refining furnace at an eastern Pennsylvania plant over the weekend. The Berks County coroner’s office said Monday that 30-year-old John Evanoff fell into a refining kettle portion of the furnace shortly before 11:30 p.m. Saturday in East...
More than 100,000 have now died of covid-19 in Italy
MILAN — Italy surpassed 100,000 dead in the pandemic, a year after it became the first country in Europe to go on lockdown in a bid to stop the spread of covid-19. The Italian Health Ministry on Monday said 318 people had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the...
Georgia Senate passes bill to nix no-excuse absentee voting
ATLANTA — Georgia’s state Senate narrowly passed a Republican-backed bill that would end no-excuse absentee voting Monday, the deadline that bills must generally pass out of one chamber to remain alive for the session. Senate Bill 241 would limit absentee voting to people 65 and older, those with a physical...
Trump policy that weakened wild bird protections is revoked
BILLINGS, Mont. — The Biden administration on Monday reversed a policy imposed under former President Donald Trump that drastically weakened the government’s power to enforce a century-old law that protects most U.S. bird species. Trump ended criminal prosecutions against companies responsible for bird deaths that could have been prevented. The...
4 big Pennsylvania counties unhappy over vaccine share
HARRISBURG — Four of Pennsylvania’s seven most-heavily populated counties are airing their unhappiness over the size of their allotment of coronavirus vaccines, saying Monday that a meeting with Gov. Tom Wolf’s top health official did not resolve their concerns. Leaders of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties — home to...
Jury selection on pause for ex-cop charged in George Floyd’s death
MINNEAPOLIS — The judge overseeing the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer accused in the death of George Floyd on Monday paused jury selection for at least a day while an appeal proceeds over the possible reinstatement of a third-degree murder charge. As hundreds of protesters gathered outside the...
Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks, CDC says
NEW YORK — Fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from federal health officials. The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way with people considered at low-risk for severe disease,...
U.K. royals absorb shock of revealing Harry, Meghan interview
LONDON — Britain and its royal family absorbed the tremors Monday from a sensational television interview by Prince Harry and Meghan, in which the couple said they encountered racist attitudes and a lack of support that drove the duchess to thoughts of suicide. In a two-hour soul-baring interview with Oprah...
Bartos declares candidacy for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG — Jeff Bartos is formally launching his campaign for Pennsylvania’s wide-open U.S. Senate race, the highest-profile Republican candidate so far to declare for the seat. Bartos, the Republican Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018, has said he was seriously considering a run and filed paperwork to run last...
Biden order could change how colleges handle sex misconduct
WASHINGTON — In a first step toward reversing a contentious Trump administration policy, President Joe Biden on Monday ordered his administration to review federal rules guiding colleges in their handling of campus sexual assaults. In an executive order, Biden directed the Education Department to examine rules that the Trump administration...
Authorities to seek charges after violent Boulder partyVideo
Authorities promised Sunday to pursue criminal charges after a massive party near the University of Colorado in Boulder devolved into a violent confrontation with police that left three officers injured. Hundreds of people flooded the streets in an area known as the Hill on Saturday night and when told to...
Meghan describes anguish about hurtful discussions about sonVideo
LOS ANGELES — Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that she experienced suicidal thoughts over how she was being treated after marrying Harry, and the anguish she had over discussions about her son that ranged from questions about his skin color to the decision that he would not get a prince title....
Carla Wallenda, member of famed high-wire act, dies at 85
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Carla Wallenda, a member of “The Flying Wallendas” high-wire act and the last surviving child of the famed troupe’s founder, has died at the age of 85. Her son, Rick Wallenda, said on social media she died Saturday in Sarasota, Fla., of natural causes. She was...
3 killed in Lehigh County crash were DeSales students, university says
CENTER VALLEY — A vehicle left the road and slammed into a tree in eastern Pennsylvania, killing three people and injuring one other person, authorities said. The Lehigh County coroner’s office said the crash occurred shortly after 8:30 p.m. Saturday in Upper Saucon Township. The coroner’s office said two males...
At least 20 dead, 600 wounded in Equatorial Guinea blasts
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — A series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 600 others on Sunday, authorities said. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said the explosion at 4 p.m. local time was due to the “negligent handling of dynamite”...
Swiss narrowly back proposal to ban face coverings in publicVideo
Swiss voters narrowly approved on Sunday a proposal to ban face coverings, both the niqabs and burqas worn by a few Muslim women in the country and the ski masks and bandannas used by protesters. The measure will outlaw covering one’s face in public places such as restaurants, sports stadiums,...
GOP pushes bills to allow social media ‘censorship’ lawsuits
Republican state lawmakers are pushing for social media giants to face costly lawsuits for policing content on their websites, taking aim at a federal law that prevents internet companies from being sued for removing posts. GOP politicians in roughly two dozen states have introduced bills that would allow for civil...
Rosedale Tech to host weekly ‘Women in the Trades’ events throughout March
Greensburg native Melody Carranza found herself frustrated after opting for a career in the medical field. “Once I realized that wasn’t for me, I started looking at other options,” Carranza said. Similarly, Raelee Nicholson of Charleroi was “in the process of following a traditional four-year path with offers to multiple...
