Senate confirms Christopher Waller to serve on Fed’s board
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed the nomination of Christopher Waller for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, placing another of President Donald Trump’s picks on the Fed’s influential board after a string of high-profile rejections. The vote in favor of Waller was 48-47. Waller, research director at...
‘Mistakes were made’ at maskless election hearing held by covid-positive lawmaker, Pa. Senate leader says
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — The top Republican in the Pennsylvania Senate acknowledged Wednesday “mistakes were made” and necessary coronavirus safety precautions were ignored...
Pennsylvania reports over 11,000 new coronavirus cases
Pennsylvania on Thursday reported its highest number of new single-day covid-19 cases since the pandemic started in March with 11,406 cases. The state also reported 187 new deaths attributed to the coronavirus. The new cases bring the total number in the state to 386,837. The state’s seven-day average climbed to...
Staffing shortages threaten Western Pa. hospitals
More than one-third of hospitals in Southwestern Pennsylvania anticipate staffing shortages in the coming week. It’s a threshold that, if paired with a further surge in hospital admissions, could force a cutback in elective surgeries. Secretary of Health Rachel Levine noted the rising number of covid-19 hospital admissions across the...
Nestle to spend $3.6 billion on improving climate footprint
GENEVA — Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, said Thursday that it will spend $3.6 billion over five years to improve its climate footprint. Nestle said the investment will increase the Switzerland-based company’s use of renewable energy, which it aims to use exclusively by 2025. The money will also boost...
Optimism growing for covid relief bill as pressure buildsVideo
WASHINGTON — Optimism about delivering long-sought covid-19 relief is building on Capitol Hill after additional rank-and-file lawmakers voiced support for a bipartisan, middle-of-the-road plan taking shape in the Senate and as top congressional leaders connected on the topic for the first time in months. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate...
12 Days of Christmas cost drops in 2020, but you’re not getting all the gifts
The 12 Days of Christmas will cost you less than half of what it did in 2019. But you’re getting less gifts because of covid-19. “The true cost of Christmas decreased in 2020, as this year’s index accounts for cancellations of many live performances,” PNC said on their rundown of...
Chinese moon probe begins return to Earth with lunar samples
BEIJING — A Chinese lunar probe lifted off from the moon Thursday night with a cargo of lunar samples on the first stage of its return to Earth, state media reported. Chang’e 5, the third Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon and the first to take off from it...
Harrisburg men shipped millions of dollars worth of marijuana through the mail, feds charge
Five Harrisburg men have been indicted for what federal investigators say was a conspiracy to ship thousands of pounds of marijuana through the mail. U.S. Attorney David Freed on Thursday identified those charged as Christopher Texidor, 33; William Kuduk, 34; Justin Laboy, 33; Jose Laboy, 36; and Jonathan Cobaugh, 23....
U.S. virus deaths top 3,100 in a single day for the first time
The U.S. recorded over 3,100 covid-19 deaths in a single day, obliterating the record set last spring, while the number of Americans hospitalized with the virus has eclipsed 100,000 for the first time and new cases have begun topping 200,000 a day, according to figures released Thursday. The three benchmarks...
Biden facing high hopes, tough choices on border wall
LOS EBANOS, Texas — The U.S. government has been trying to take Pamela Rivas’ land for a border wall since before Joe Biden was vice president. From a brushy bluff, Rivas can look across the Rio Grande to Mexico on the other side. She spent her childhood fishing on the...
Police: Couple flew to Hawaii despite positive virus tests
HONOLULU — A couple was arrested at a Hawaii airport for traveling on a flight from California despite knowing they were infected with covid-19, authorities said. Wesley Moribe, 41, and Courtney Peterson, 46, boarded a United Airlines flight to Lihue with a 4-year-old child after San Francisco International Airport officials...
VP-elect Harris picks Tina Flournoy to be her chief of staff
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has named Tina Flournoy, a veteran Democratic strategist and aide to the Clintons, as her chief of staff, the transition team announced Thursday. Flournoy’s appointment as Harris’ top staffer adds to a team of advisers led by Black women. Harris, who is of...
Police say 4 dead after explosion at U.K. waste water plant
LONDON — Four people have died following an explosion at a waste water treatment plant near the southwest England city of Bristol, police said Thursday. Chief Inspector Mark Runacres of Avon and Somerset Police said that a fifth person was injured during the explosion at Avonmouth but that his condition...
Mural at Black archive in Amsterdam vandalized
AMSTERDAM — Vandals daubed white paint over the faces of Black historical figures on a mural outside a Black cultural archive in Amsterdam in what one of the archive’s founders called a racist attack Thursday. The vandals also stuck stickers on the mural saying in Dutch “soot-smudge Pete is genocide,”...
China hits out at U.S. after report of new visa restrictions
BEIJING — China on Thursday accused critics in the U.S. government of “an escalation of political suppression” against Beijing following a report of new visa restrictions on members of China’s ruling Communist Party and their immediate family members. Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said China would “make representations” to the...
School closings threaten gains of students with disabilities
Without any in-school special education services for months, 14-year-old Joshua Nazzaro’s normally sweet demeanor has sometimes given way to aggressive meltdowns that had been under control before the pandemic. The teenager, who has autism and is nonverbal, often wanted no part of his online group speech therapy sessions, and when...
NASA: Mystery object is 54-year-old rocket, not asteroid
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday. Observations by a telescope in Hawaii clinched its identity, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery...
Search persists for parents of 628 kids separated at border
SAN DIEGO — A court-appointed committee has yet to find the parents of 628 children separated at the border early in the Trump administration, according to a court filing Wednesday that also said the government last week provided additional phone numbers to aid the long-running search. Parents of 333 children...
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree turns on, with coronavirus rules
NEW YORK — Rockin’ around the Christmas tree looks different for visitors at Rockefeller Center this year, starting with the tree lighting ceremony on Wednesday. What’s normally a chaotic, crowded tourist hotspot during the holiday season was instead a mask-mandated, time-limited, socially distanced locale because of the coronavirus pandemic. The...
In video, Trump recycles unsubstantiated voter fraud claimsVideo
WASHINGTON — Increasingly detached from reality, President Donald Trump stood before a White House lectern and delivered a 46-minute diatribe against the election results that produced a win for Democrat Joe Biden, unspooling one misstatement after another to back his baseless claim that he really won. Trump called his address,...
Police: Officer in West Virginia shooting unlikely to surviveVideo
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia police officer who was shot by a suspect is unlikely to survive, a police chief said Wednesday. Charleston officer Cassie Johnson was shot Tuesday while responding to a parking complaint. She was sworn in as a police officer in January 2019. Charleston Police Officer...
Covid-19 outbreak infects more than half of inmates at Pa. prison for elderly and infirm
The State Correctional Institution Laurel Highlands, housed in a former state psychiatric hospital, is part prison, part long-term-care facility for many of the oldest and sickest men in Pennsylvania’s prisons. Now, it’s the epicenter of a covid-19 outbreak tearing across the state prison system. In the last month, 444 prisoners...
Pennsylvania seeks money from 11,000 who received jobless aid
Pennsylvania wants about 11,000 residents to repay money officials say they never should have received — either by an honest mistake or fraud — through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. About 88% of the claims that have been processed for identity through the IDME verification system for PUA funding...
Nurses wanted: Swamped hospitals scramble for pandemic helpVideo
OMAHA, Neb. — U.S. hospitals slammed with covid-19 patients are trying to lure nurses and doctors out of retirement, recruiting students and new graduates who have yet to earn their licenses and offering eye-popping salaries in a desperate bid to ease staffing shortages. With the virus surging from coast to...
