Pennsylvania adds another day of 10,000 coronavirus cases, 273 deaths
Pennsylvania on Saturday reported 10,045 new coronavirus cases, making this the first time the Keystone State has posted consecutive 10,000-case days in nearly a month. The last time commonwealth posted back-to-back cases of that amount was Dec. 12 and 13, when 11,084 and 10,684 cases were reported. The new data...
Indonesia jet carrying 62 goes missing on domestic flight
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A jet carrying 62 people lost contact with air traffic controllers minutes after taking off from Indonesia’s capital on a domestic flight on Saturday, and debris found by fishermen was being examined to see if it was from the missing plane, officials said. Transportation Minister Budi Karya...
Greensburg Salem foundation targets hybrid learning needs
Members of the Greensburg Salem Education Foundation were already hard at work raising money for classroom grants before the covid-19 crisis began. That made it easy to pivot a bit and focus their efforts this year on supplying educators with the tools they’d need to teach in a new hybrid...
Favorable odds: Pennsylvania sportsbooks have handled $4.5B in bets since opening in 2018
With the NFL playoffs kicking off this weekend, eager fans are expected to flock to sportsbooks across Western Pennsylvania, helping to bolster an industry that in its infancy already has seen billions wagered in the state. Since sports betting became legal in November 2018, wagers on sports events have totaled...
Haley: Trump was ‘badly wrong’ in stoking crowd before riot
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, often mentioned as a possible 2024 GOP presidential contender, is among the latest from her party to denounce President Donald Trump’s comments stoking supporters to mount a violent assault on the Capitol. “He was badly wrong with his words,” Haley said Thursday...
Lawyers: Woman on U.S. death row not competent for execution
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for the only woman on federal death row are asking a judge to halt her execution and arguing she isn’t competent and can’t be put to death. Lisa Montgomery’s lawyers filed a petition Friday in federal court in Indiana seeking to halt the execution, which is scheduled...
A farewell to @realDonaldTrump, gone after 57,000 tweets
WASHINGTON — realDonaldTrump, the Twitter feed that grew from the random musings of a reality TV star into the cudgel of an American president, died Friday. It was not quite 12 years old. The provocative handle was given birth by a New York real estate tycoon who used it to...
White man who drove into Iowa protesters avoids prison
IOWA CITY, Iowa — A white man who deliberately sped his car through a crowd of racial injustice protesters in Iowa City, striking several, will avoid prison and have the incident erased from his record if he stays out of trouble for three years. A judge last month granted a...
Colorado officers won’t be charged for detaining Black girls
DENVER — Suburban Denver police officers won’t be charged after detaining four Black girls by gunpoint this summer and handcuffing two of them after wrongly suspecting they were riding in a stolen car, prosecutors said Friday. The same day, the Colorado attorney general opened a grand jury investigation into the...
FBI arrests Arkansas man from photo inside Pelosi’s office
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The FBI on Friday arrested an Arkansas man who was photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office following the storming of the Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters, authorities announced. Richard Barnett turned himself in to FBI agents at...
U.S. judge blocks Trump administration’s sweeping asylum rules
PHOENIX — A U.S. judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s most sweeping set of asylum restrictions less than two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. The rules had been set to take effect Monday. The court order has limited immediate impact because the government has largely suspended asylum...
Twitter bans Trump, citing risk of incitement
Twitter banned President Donald Trump’s account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Twitter has long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviors. But in a...
Updated Pa. vaccination plan adds new phase for more essential employees
Pennsylvania officials continue to retool the state’s vaccination plan to fall in line with recommendations from federal groups and further define who can get the vaccine and when, releasing the fourth iteration of plan on Friday afternoon. “It will take several months before there is vaccine available for everyone,” said...
W.Va. state lawmaker charged after entering Capitol with rioters
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia state lawmaker has been charged with entering a restricted area of the U.S. Capitol after he livestreamed himself rushing into the building with a mob of pro-Trump supporters, the Justice Department announced Friday. Ken Kohl, a top deputy federal prosecutor in Washington, announced the...
GOP’s David Perdue concedes to Jon Ossoff in Georgia runoff
ATLANTA — Republican David Perdue conceded his loss to Democrat Jon Ossoff on Friday, bringing Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoffs that will deliver Democratic control of the chamber one step closer to an end. A day earlier, the GOP’s Kelly Loeffler conceded to Democrat Raphael Warnock in the other race....
Army head says National Guard may be allowed to carry guns in D.C.
WASHINGTON — Defense leaders are reviewing restrictions on the use of force by National Guard members and could allow troops to carry batons or guns in Washington, D.C., as they brace for more protests and possible violence around the Jan. 20 inaugural, The Associated Press has learned. Army Secretary Ryan...
Illinois GOP congresswoman apologizes for quoting Hitler
CHICAGO — A freshman Republican congresswoman from downstate Illinois apologized Friday for knowingly quoting Adolf Hitler during a rally outside of the U.S. Capitol this week. Rep. Mary Miller, who was among the Republicans who tried to challenge the certification of certain Electoral College votes that went to incoming President...
U.S. Attorney: FBI agents search lawmakers’ offices and homes
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Federal prosecutors in Tennessee said Friday that FBI agents have searched the homes and offices of several state lawmakers. U.S. Attorney’s Office of Middle Tennessee spokesman David Boling confirmed the searches included the homes of former GOP House Speaker Glen Casada, state Rep. Robin Smith and Casada’s...
Pelosi seeks to curb Trump’s nuclear power, plans to impeach
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she has spoken to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about preventing an “unhinged” President Donald Trump from ordering military actions including a possible nuclear strike in his final days and hours at the White House. Pelosi said in a...
Biden to speed release of coronavirus vaccinesVideo
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden will release most available covid-19 vaccine doses to speed delivery to more people, a reversal of the Trump administration’s approach, his office said Friday. “The president-elect believes we must accelerate distribution of the vaccine while continuing to ensure the Americans who need it most get...
After Capitol riots, Lehigh University rescinds Trump’s honorary degree from 1988
Lehigh University announced Friday it will rescind President Donald Trump’s honorary degree after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. In a message posted on the university’s social media accounts Friday, officials said the Executive Committee of the...
Pfizer study suggests vaccine works against virus variant
New research suggests Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine can protect against a mutation found in the two more-contagious variants of the coronavirus that have erupted around the world, including here in Pennsylvania. The results are reassuring, albeit preliminary, and not surprising to scientists who didn’t expect a single mutation to defeat the...
Pennsylvania reports most new covid cases since mid-December
Pennsylvania on Friday reported 10,178 new cases of coronavirus, the most added in more than three weeks. This marks a return to more than 10,000 daily reported cases since 10,684 on Dec. 16. The state’s highest daily report was 12,884 back on Dec. 5. The state now has 703,265 cases...
U.S. tops 4,000 daily deaths from coronavirus for 1st time
ORANGE, Calif. — The U.S. has topped 4,000 daily deaths from the coronavirus for the first time, breaking a record set just one day earlier, with the surge being driven in several Sun Belt states that experienced spikes over the summer. The tally from Johns Hopkins University shows the U.S....
President Trump won’t attend Joe Biden’s inaugurationVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday he won’t attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, undercutting his message a day earlier that he would work to ensure a “smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power” to his successor. Trump offered no clues for how he would spent his...
